| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Life in the Iron-Mills by Rebecca Davis: of hopeless discomfort and veiled crime: more fitting, if one
looked deeper into the heart of things, at her thwarted woman's
form, her colorless life, her waking stupor that smothered pain
and hunger,--even more fit to be a type of her class. Deeper
yet if one could look, was there nothing worth reading in this
wet, faded thing, halfcovered with ashes? no story of a soul
filled with groping passionate love, heroic unselfishness,
fierce jealousy? of years of weary trying to please the one
human being whom she loved, to gain one look of real heart-
kindness from him? If anything like this were hidden beneath
the pale, bleared eyes, and dull, washed-out-looking face, no
Life in the Iron-Mills |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Human Drift by Jack London: my fingers lacked training, and I made the mistake of depending on
my eyes to handle the reins. This brought me up against a
disastrous optical illusion. The bight of the off head-line,
being longer and heavier than that of the off wheel-line, hung
lower. In a moment requiring quick action, I invariably mistook
the two lines. Pulling on what I thought was the wheel-line, in
order to straighten the team, I would see the leaders swing
abruptly around into a jack-pole. Now for sensations of sheer
impotence, nothing can compare with a jack-pole, when the
horrified driver beholds his leaders prancing gaily up the road
and his wheelers jogging steadily down the road, all at the same
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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 The Tapestried Chamber by Walter Scott: "So you have stolen a march upon us this morning, my dear
General," said Lord Woodville; "or you have not found your bed so
much to your mind as I had hoped and you seemed to expect. How
did you rest last night?"
"Oh, excellently well! remarkably well! never better in my
life," said General Browne rapidly, and yet with an air of
embarrassment which was obvious to his friend. He then hastily
swallowed a cup of tea, and neglecting or refusing whatever else
was offered, seemed to fall into a fit of abstraction.
"You will take the gun to-day, General?" said his friend and
host, but had to repeat the question twice ere he received the
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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 A Lover's Complaint by William Shakespeare: Storming her world with sorrow's wind and rain.
Upon her head a platted hive of straw,
Which fortified her visage from the sun,
Whereon the thought might think sometime it saw
The carcase of a beauty spent and done.
Time had not scythed all that youth begun,
Nor youth all quit; but, spite of Heaven's fell rage
Some beauty peeped through lattice of sear'd age.
Oft did she heave her napkin to her eyne,
Which on it had conceited characters,
Laund'ring the silken figures in the brine
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