| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Market-Place by Harold Frederic: Thorpe, even while wondering what business of his it was,
indicated the glaringly new bags--and then only half
repressed a cry of pleasure at discovering that Lord
Plowden stood beside him.
"It's all right; my man will look out for your things,"
said the latter, as they shook hands. "We will go and get
our places."
The fat policeman at the gate touched his helmet.
A lean, elderly man in a sort of guard's uniform hobbled
obsequiously before them down the platform, opened to them
a first-class compartment with a low bow and a deprecatory
The Market-Place |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Main Street by Sinclair Lewis: things over by myself."
II
She had left a city which sat up nights to talk of universal
transition; of European revolution, guild socialism, free verse.
She had fancied that all the world was changing.
She found that it was not.
In Gopher Prairie the only ardent new topics were prohibition,
the place in Minneapolis where you could get whisky at
thirteen dollars a quart, recipes for home-made beer, the "high
cost of living," the presidential election, Clark's new car, and
not very novel foibles of Cy Bogart. Their problems were
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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 Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas: innocent instead of the guilty; but when the culprits are
discovered" (Villefort here extended his hand toward a large
crucifix placed opposite to his desk) -- "when they are
discovered, I swear to you, by all I hold most sacred, that
whoever they may be they shall die. Now, after the oath I
have just taken, and which I will keep, madame, dare you ask
for mercy for that wretch!"
"But, sir, are you sure he is as guilty as they say?"
"Listen; this is his description: `Benedetto, condemned, at
the age of sixteen, for five years to the galleys for
forgery.' He promised well, as you see -- first a runaway,
The Count of Monte Cristo |
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 Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: and his net.
We accosted him with the intention of buying his haul,--an idea which
came to us both, and was expressed in a smile, to which I responded by
a slight pressure of the arm I held and drew toward my heart. It was
one of those nothings of which memory makes poems when we sit by the
fire and recall the hour when that nothing moved us, and the place
where it did so,--a mirage the effects of which have never been noted
down, though it appears on the objects that surround us in moments
when life sits lightly and our hearts are full. The loveliest scenery
is that we make ourselves. What man with any poesy in him does not
remember some mere mass of rock, which holds, it may be, a greater
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