| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald: slippers were fetched. Just as she was growing impatient, Sally
came out of the dressing-room, beaming with her accustomed good
nature and high spirits, and together they descended to the floor
below, while the shifting search-light of Isabelle's mind flashed
on two ideas: she was glad she had high color to-night, and she
wondered if he danced well.
Down-stairs, in the club's great room, she was surrounded for a
moment by the girls she had met in the afternoon, then she heard
Sally's voice repeating a cycle of names, and found herself
bowing to a sextet of black and white, terribly stiff, vaguely
familiar figures. The name Blaine figured somewhere, but at first
This Side of Paradise |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Door in the Wall, et. al. by H. G. Wells: aquiver with rage. So furious was I, I could have quarrelled with
her if I could have found one shade of accusation in her eyes.
"All my magnificence had gone from me. I walked up and down
our rock cell, and outside was the darkling sea and a light to the
southward that flared and passed and came again.
"'We must get out of this place,' I said over and over. 'I
have made my choice, and I will have no hand in these troubles. I
will have nothing of this war. We have taken our lives out of all
these things. This is no refuge for us. Let us go.'
"And the next day we were already in flight from the war that
covered the world.
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Copy-Cat & Other Stories by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: a whole year," she declared, in a slow, steady voice.
"As you know, I have enough to live on, and -- in
order that no word of mine can be garbled and twisted
as it has been to-night, I speak not at all. Every-
thing which I have to communicate shall be written
in black and white, and signed with my own name,
and black and white cannot lie."
It was Jane who spoke first. "What will people
say?" she whimpered, feebly.
"From what I have heard you all say to-night,
whatever you make them," retorted Annie -- the
|
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 Chinese Boy and Girl by Isaac Taylor Headland: first pole another of equal length, then another and still
another, which put the plate whirling in the air thirty feet
high.
Thus whirling he balanced it on his hand, on his arm, on his
thumb, on his forehead, and finally in his mouth, after which he
tossed the plate up, threw the pole aside and caught it as it
came down. The old manager standing by received the pole, but as
he saw the plate tossed up, he fell flat upon the earth,
screaming lest the plate be broken.
|
