| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Spirit of the Border by Zane Grey: and wiped his moist brow.
A pink bloom tinged Kate's cheeks, and her eyes glowed with a happy light; but
George never saw these womanly evidences of pleasure.
"Of course I know you don't care for me---"
"Did Mr. Edwards tell you so?" asked Kate, glancing up quickly.
"Why, yes, he has often said he thought that. Indeed, he always seemed to
regard himself as the fortunate object of your affections. I always believed
he was."
"But it wasn't true."
"What?"
"It's not true."
The Spirit of the Border |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Profits of Religion by Upton Sinclair: destinies of mankind so little that there has not been sufficient
emolument to justify the priest in holding on to his job as
astrologer.
But when you come to the field of meteorology, what a difference!
Has any utmost precision of barometer been able to drive the
priest out of his prerogatives as rainmaker? Not even in the most
civilized of countries; not in that most decorous and dignified
of institutions, the Protestant Episcopal Church of America! I
study with care the passage wherein the clergyman appears as
controller of the fate of crops. I note a chastened caution of
phraseology; the church will not repeat the experience of the
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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 Frances Waldeaux by Rebecca Davis: married to me some day."
"Not so bad a dream," puffed his cousin.
"I'll take a train somewhere," said the prince. "But no
matter where I go, I'll find an American old woman with
a girl to marry. They all carry the Hof Kalender
in their pockets, and know every bachelor in Germany."
The captain watched him attentively. "I don't believe
those women inside mean to drive any marriage bargain
with you, Hugo," he said gruffly. "I doubt whether the
little mees would marry you if you asked her. Her dot,
I hear, is e-normous!" waving his hand upward as if to
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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 The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: of the gloomy furniture of the room--of the dark and tattered
draperies, which, tortured into motion by the breath of a rising
tempest, swayed fitfully to and fro upon the walls, and rustled
uneasily about the decorations of the bed. But my efforts were
fruitless. An irrepressible tremor gradually pervaded my frame;
and, at length, there sat upon my very heart an incubus of
utterly causeless alarm. Shaking this off with a gasp and a
struggle, I uplifted myself upon the pillows, and, peering
earnestly within the intense darkness of the chamber, hearkened--
I know not why, except that an instinctive spirit prompted me--to
certain low and indefinite sounds which came, through the pauses
The Fall of the House of Usher |
