| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson: hope or thought beyond the present moment and its perpetuation to the
end of time. Till the end of time she would have had nothing altered,
but still continue delightedly to serve her idol, and be repaid (say
twice in the month) with a clap on the shoulder.
I have said her heart leaped - it is the accepted phrase. But rather,
when she was alone in any chamber of the house, and heard his foot
passing on the corridors, something in her bosom rose slowly until her
breath was suspended, and as slowly fell again with a deep sigh, when
the steps had passed and she was disappointed of her eyes' desire. This
perpetual hunger and thirst of his presence kept her all day on the
alert. When he went forth at morning, she would stand and follow him
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Redheaded Outfield by Zane Grey: played his men in different positions and for three
more days he drove them unmercifully.
When Saturday came, the day for the game
with Bogg's Farm, a wild protest went up from
the boys. Willie experienced his first bitterness
as a manager. Out of forty aspirants for the
Madden's Hill team he could choose but nine to
play the game. And as a conscientious manager
he could use no favorites. Willie picked the best
players and assigned them to positions that, in
his judgment, were the best suited to them. Bob
The Redheaded Outfield |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Captain Stormfield by Mark Twain: general directions. I thanked him and started; but he says -
"Wait a minute; it is millions of leagues from here. Go outside
and stand on that red wishing-carpet; shut your eyes, hold your
breath, and wish yourself there."
"I'm much obliged," says I; "why didn't you dart me through when I
first arrived?"
"We have a good deal to think of here; it was your place to think
of it and ask for it. Good-by; we probably sha'n't see you in this
region for a thousand centuries or so."
"In that case, O REVOOR," says I.
I hopped onto the carpet and held my breath and shut my eyes and
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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 Gambara by Honore de Balzac: woman whose dress betrayed the most abject, inveterate, and long-
accustomed poverty, who was no handsomer than a hundred others to be
seen any evening at the play, at the opera, in the world of fashion,
and who was certainly not so young as Madame de Manerville, from whom
he had obtained an assignation for that very day, and who was perhaps
waiting for him at that very hour.
But in the glance at once tender and wild, swift and deep, which that
woman's black eyes had shot at him by stealth, there was such a world
of buried sorrows and promised joys! And she had colored so fiercely
when, on coming out of a shop where she had lingered a quarter of an
hour, her look frankly met the Count's, who had been waiting for her
Gambara |
