| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Mrs. Warren's Profession by George Bernard Shaw: what amounts to a high Cambridge degree; and she seems to have as
much money as she wants.
REV. S. [sinking into a feeble vein of humor] I greatly doubt
whether she has as much money as y o u will want.
FRANK. Oh, come: I havnt been so very extravagant. I live ever
so quietly; I dont drink; I dont bet much; and I never go
regularly to the razzle-dazzle as you did when you were my age.
REV. S. [booming hollowly] Silence, sir.
FRANK. Well, you told me yourself, when I was making every such
an ass of myself about the barmaid at Redhill, that you once
offered a woman fifty pounds for the letters you wrote to her
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Four Arthurian Romances by Chretien DeTroyes: acquaintance which was made in private between the moon and the
sun. Do you know of whom I mean to speak? He who was lord of
the knights, and who was renowned above them all, ought surely to
be called the sun. I refer, of course, to my lord Gawain, for
chivalry is enhanced by him just as when the morning sun sheds
its rays abroad and lights all places where it shines. And I
call her the moon, who cannot be otherwise because of her sense
and courtesy. However, I call her so not only because of her
good repute, but because her name is, in fact, Lunete.
(Vv. 2415-2538.) The damsel's name was Lunete, and she was a
charming brunette, prudent, clever, and polite. As her
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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 Exiles by Honore de Balzac: proof of the fact. He soared through space, carrying with him the
passionate souls of his hearers on the wings of his word, making them
feel the infinite, and bathing them in the heavenly sea. Then the
Doctor accounted logically for hell by circles placed in inverse order
to the shining spheres that lead to God, in which torments and
darkness take the place of the Spirit and of light. Pain was as
intelligible as rapture. The terms of comparison were present in the
conditions of human life and its various atmospheres of suffering and
of intellect. Thus the most extraordinary traditions of hell and
purgatory were quite naturally conceivable.
He gave the fundamental /rationale/ of virtue with admirable
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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 Heart of the West by O. Henry: way to the post-office. He stopped his team at the gate and called.
But Frau Hildesmuller was watching for him. Out rushed the whole
family of Hildesmullers.
Frau Hildesmuller, fat and flushed, inquired if he had a letter from
Lena, and then Fritz raised his voice and told the tale of his
adventure. He told the contents of that letter that the robber had
made him read, and then Frau Hildesmuller broke into wild weeping. Her
little Lena drown herself! Why had they sent her from home? What could
be done? Perhaps it would be too late by the time they could send for
her now. Peter Hildesmuller dropped his meerschaum on the walk and it
shivered into pieces.
Heart of the West |
