| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Turn of the Screw by Henry James: to dress," I cried, "and if you must do so, I leave you.
Try meanwhile, yourself, upstairs."
"With THEM?" Oh, on this, the poor woman promptly joined me!
XIX
We went straight to the lake, as it was called at Bly, and I daresay
rightly called, though I reflect that it may in fact have been a sheet
of water less remarkable than it appeared to my untraveled eyes.
My acquaintance with sheets of water was small, and the pool
of Bly, at all events on the few occasions of my consenting,
under the protection of my pupils, to affront its surface
in the old flat-bottomed boat moored there for our use,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from St. Ives by Robert Louis Stevenson: weapon; had and held me at a disadvantage from the first assault;
forced me to give ground continually, and at last, in mere self-
defence, to let him have the point. It struck him in the throat,
and he went down like a ninepin and moved no more.
It seemed this was the signal for the engagement to be
discontinued. The other combatants separated at once; our foes
were suffered, without molestation, to lift up and bear away their
fallen comrade; so that I perceived this sort of war to be not
wholly without laws of chivalry, and perhaps rather to partake of
the character of a tournament than of a battle A OUTRANCE. There
was no doubt, at least, that I was supposed to have pushed the
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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 Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart: market and the Boy Scouts. "Heaven and earth, are full - " His
chin, large and fleshy, buried itself deep; his eyes were glued on
the music sheet in his hand.
"Are full, are full, are full," sang the soprano, Clare Rossiter,
of the yellow colonial house on the Ridgely Road. She sang with
her eyes turned up, and as she reached G flat she lifted herself
on her toes. "Of the majesty, of Thy glory."
"Ready," barked the choir master. "Full now, and all together."
The choir room in the parish house resounded to the twenty voices
of the choir. The choir master at the piano kept time with his
head. Earnest and intent, they filled the building with the
The Breaking Point |
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 An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson: myself, having had a good deal of open-air exercise of late; but I
wished the old people somewhere else. It was neither the right
sort of music nor the right sort of divinity for men and women who
have come through most accidents by this time, and probably have an
opinion of their own upon the tragic element in life. A person up
in years can generally do his own MISERERE for himself; although I
notice that such an one often prefers JUBILATE DEO for his ordinary
singing. On the whole, the most religious exercise for the aged is
probably to recall their own experience; so many friends dead, so
many hopes disappointed, so many slips and stumbles, and withal so
many bright days and smiling providences; there is surely the
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