| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Prince Otto by Robert Louis Stevenson: himself was in the wrong. The appeal to liberal doctrines had,
besides, unmanned him.
'Well,' said he, 'if I was rude, I'll own to it. I meant no ill,
and did nothing out of my just rights; but I am above all these old
vulgar notions too; and if I spoke sharp, I'll ask her pardon.'
'Freely granted, Fritz,' said Ottilia.
'But all this doesn't answer me,' cried Fritz. 'I ask what you two
spoke about. She says she promised not to tell; well, then, I mean
to know. Civility is civility, but I'll be no man's gull. I have a
right to common justice, if I DO keep company!'
'If you will ask Mr. Gottesheim,' replied Otto, 'you will find I
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Fanny Herself by Edna Ferber: unduly), but Mrs. Brandeis changed nothing. She knew that
the farmer women who stood outside with their husbands on
busy Saturdays would not have understood repression in
display, but they did understand the tickets that marked the
wares in plain figures--this berry set, $1.59; that lamp,
$1.23. They talked it over, outside, and drifted away, and
came back, and entered, and bought.
She knew when to be old-fashioned, did Mrs. Brandeis, and
when to be modern. She had worn the first short walking
skirt in Winnebago. It cleared the ground in a day before
germs were discovered, when women's skirts trailed and
Fanny Herself |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Lamentable Tragedy of Locrine and Mucedorus by William Shakespeare: When he beheld his noble minded sons
Slain traitorously by all the Mermidons,
Lamented more than I for Albanact.
GWENDOLINE.
Not Hecuba, the queen of Ilium
When she beheld the town of Pergamus,
Her palace, burnst with all devouring flames,
Her fifty sons and daughters fresh of hue
Murthered by wicked Pirrhus' bloody sword,
Shed such sad tears as I for Albanact.
CAMBER.
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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 A Second Home by Honore de Balzac: Thus Granville was a mark for the mean ideas, the vacuous arguments,
the narrow views by which his wife--fancying she had achieved the
first victory--tried to gain a second by bringing him back within the
pale of the Church.
This was the last straw. What can be more intolerable than the blind
struggle in which the obstinacy of a bigot tries to meet the acumen of
a lawyer? What more terrible to endure than the acrimonious pin-pricks
to which a passionate soul prefers a dagger-thrust? Granville
neglected his home. Everything there was unendurable. His children,
broken by their mother's frigid despotism, dared not go with him to
the play; indeed, Granville could never give them any pleasure without
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