| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Riverman by Stewart Edward White: them. He knew the Lake to lie just beyond. With the thought he
arose. A few moments later he stood on top the hill, gazing out
over the blue waters.
Very blue they were, with a contrasting snowy white fringe of waves
breaking gently as far up the coast as the eye could reach. The
beach, on these tideless waters, was hard and smooth only in the
narrow strip over which ran the wash of the low surf. All the rest
of the expanse of sand back to the cliff-like hills lay dry and
tumbled into hummocks and drifts, from which projected here a sawlog
cast inland from a raft by some long-past storm, there a slab, again
a ship's rib sticking gaunt and defiant from the shifting, restless
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Love Songs by Sara Teasdale: I do not hope to bind the wind
Or set a fetter on the sea --
It is enough to feel his love
Blow by like music over me.
Come
Come, when the pale moon like a petal
Floats in the pearly dusk of spring,
Come with arms outstretched to take me,
Come with lips pursed up to cling.
Come, for life is a frail moth flying,
Caught in the web of the years that pass,
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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 When a Man Marries by Mary Roberts Rinehart: divided among ten. And of those ten, at least eight of us were
friends, and the other two had been vouched for by the Browns and
Jimmy. It was a horrible mix-up. For the necklace was gone--there
couldn't be any doubt of that--and although, as Dallas said, it
couldn't get out of the house, still, there were plenty of places
to hide the thing.
The worst of our trouble really originated with Max Reed, after
all. For it was Max who made the silly wager over the telephone,
with Dick Bagley. He bet five hundred even that one of us, at
least, would break quarantine within the next twenty-four hours,
and, of course, that settled it. Dick told it around the club as
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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 St. Ives by Robert Louis Stevenson: The best I could imagine was to spin the business out some minutes
longer, then capitulate. At least, I would not capituatle one
moment too soon.
'Am I to take that for NO?' he asked.
'Referring to your former obliging proposal?' said I. 'My good
sir, you are to take it, as you say, for "No." Certainly I will
not show you my deeds; certainly I will not rise from table and
trundle out to see your magistrates. I have too much respect for
my digestion, and too little curiosity in justices of the peace.'
He leaned forward, looked me nearly in the face, and reached out
one hand to the bell-rope. 'See here, my fine fellow!' said he.
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