| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton: answer, and she pressed on: "And so this morning, when I saw
you were frightened by the expense of bringing all the children
with us, and when I felt I couldn't leave them, and couldn't
leave you either, I remembered the bracelet; and I sent you off
to telephone while I rushed round the corner to a little
jeweller's where I'd been before, and pawned it so that you
shouldn't have to pay for the children .... But now, darling,
you see, if you've got all that money, I can get it out of pawn
at once, can't I, and send it back to her?"
She flung her arms about him, and he held her fast, wondering if
the tears he felt were hers or his. Still he did not speak; but
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield: rites on the altar of the afflicted children by playing the National
Anthem.
"Now I must put mamma to bed," whispered Fraulein Sonia. "But afterwards I
must take a walk. It is imperative that I free my spirit in the open air
for a moment. Would you come with me as far as the railway station and
back?"
"Very well, then, knock on my door when you're ready."
Thus the modern soul and I found ourselves together under the stars.
"What a night!" she said. "Do you know that poem of Sappho about her hands
in the stars...I am curiously sapphic. And this is so remarkable--not only
am I sapphic, I find in all the works of all the greatest writers,
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: as she looked about a theatre in search of a friend, made her eyes the
most terrible, also the softest, in short, the most extraordinary eyes
in the world. Rouge had destroyed by this time the diaphanous tints of
her cheeks, the flesh of which was still delicate; but although she
could no longer blush or turn pale, she had a thin nose with rosy,
passionate nostrils, made to express irony,--the mocking irony of
Moliere's women-servants. Her sensual mouth, expressive of sarcasm and
love of dissipation, was adorned with a deep furrow that united the
upper lip with the nose. Her chin, white and rather fat, betrayed the
violence of passion. Her hands and arms were worthy of a sovereign.
But she had one ineradicable sign of low birth,--her foot was short
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The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Fantastic Fables by Ambrose Bierce: with the Presidency and had introduced a bill into Congress
requiring the Government to loan every voter all the money that he
needed, on his personal security, was explaining to a Sunday-school
at a railway station how much he had done for the country, when an
angel looked down from Heaven and wept.
"For example," said the Great Philanthropist, watching the
teardrops pattering in the dust, "these early rains are of
incalculable advantage to the farmer."
Physicians Two
A WICKED Old Man finding himself ill sent for a Physician, who
prescribed for him and went away. Then the Wicked Old Man sent for
Fantastic Fables |
