| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Georgics by Virgil: The mute self-witness of its weight betrays.
A glance will serve to warn thee which is black,
Or what the hue of any. But hard it is
To track the signs of that pernicious cold:
Pines only, noxious yews, and ivies dark
At times reveal its traces.
All these rules
Regarding, let your land, ay, long before,
Scorch to the quick, and into trenches carve
The mighty mountains, and their upturned clods
Bare to the north wind, ere thou plant therein
Georgics |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart: little conscious, and he stood with his back to me, fingering a
Japanese vase on the mantel.
"I was thinking," he began, turning the vase around, "that, if you
feel pretty well again, and - and ready to take hold, that I should
like to go away for a week or so. Things are fairly well cleaned
up at the office."
"Do you mean - you are going to Richmond?" I asked, after a scarcely
perceptible pause. He turned and faced me, with his hands thrust in
his pockets.
"No. That's off, Lollie. The Sieberts are going for a week's
cruise along the coast. I - the hot weather has played hob with me
The Man in Lower Ten |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Roads of Destiny by O. Henry: Poet he must have been, for Yvonne was forgotten; this fine, new
loveliness held him with its freshness and grace. The subtle perfume
about her filled him with strange emotions.
* * * * *
On a certain night three persons were gathered about a table in a room
on the third floor of the same house. Three chairs and the table and a
lighted candle upon it was all the furniture. One of the persons was a
huge man, dressed in black. His expression was one of sneering pride.
The ends of his upturned moustache reached nearly to his mocking eyes.
Another was a lady, young and beautiful, with eyes that could be round
and artless, as a child's, or long and cozening, like a gypsy's, but
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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 Contrast by Royall Tyler: tended to have insinuated that I wrote his letters too;
but that was before I saw them; it won't do now;
no honour there, positively.--"Nothing looks more
vulgar, [reading affectedly] ordinary, and illiberal than
ugly, uneven, and ragged nails; the ends of which
should be kept even and clean, not tipped with black,
and cut in small segments of circles."--Segments of
circles! surely my lord did not consider that he wrote
for the beaux. Segments of circles; what a crabbed
term! Now I dare answer that my master, with all
his learning, does not know that this means, according
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