| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Malbone: An Oldport Romance by Thomas Wentworth Higginson: than her brother; she was a little taller, and of more
commanding presence, with a peculiarly noble carriage of the
shoulders. Her brow was sometimes criticised as being a little
too full for a woman; but her nose was straight, her mouth and
teeth beautiful, and her profile almost perfect. Her complexion
had lost by out-door life something of its delicacy, but had
gained a freshness and firmness that no sunlight could impair.
She had that wealth of hair which young girls find the most
enviable point of beauty in each other. Hers reached below her
knees, when loosened, or else lay coiled, in munificent braids
of gold, full of sparkling lights and contrasted shadows, upon
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: which present may be numbered:--I., the GRAMPUS; II., the BLACK FISH;
III., the NARWHALE; IV., the THRASHER; V., the KILLER.
*Why this book of whales is not denominated the Quarto is very plain.
Because, while the whales of this order, though smaller than those
of the former order, nevertheless retain a proportionate likeness to
them in figure, yet the bookbinder's Quarto volume in its dimensioned
form does not preserve the shape of the Folio volume, but the Octavo
volume does.
BOOK II. (OCTAVO), CHAPTER I. (GRAMPUS).--Though this fish, whose
loud sonorous breathing, or rather blowing, has furnished a proverb
to landsmen, is so well known a denizen of the deep, yet is he not
Moby Dick |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Summer by Edith Wharton: being in whose eyes she longed to appear superior to
the people about her! She had noticed that Mr. Royall
had not named her, had even avoided any allusion that
might identify her with the child he had brought down
from the Mountain; and she knew it was out of regard
for her that he had kept silent. But of what use was
his discretion, since only that afternoon, misled by
Harney's interest in the out-law colony, she had
boasted to him of coming from the Mountain? Now every
word that had been spoken showed her how such an origin
must widen the distance between them.
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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 Daisy Miller by Henry James: there was always, in her conversation, the same odd mixture of audacity
and puerility. Winterbourne remarked to himself that if she was
seriously interested in Giovanelli, it was very singular that she should
not take more trouble to preserve the sanctity of their interviews;
and he liked her the more for her innocent-looking indifference
and her apparently inexhaustible good humor. He could hardly have
said why, but she seemed to him a girl who would never be jealous.
At the risk of exciting a somewhat derisive smile on the reader's part,
I may affirm that with regard to the women who had hitherto interested him,
it very often seemed to Winterbourne among the possibilities that, given
certain contingencies, he should be afraid--literally afraid--of these ladies;
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