| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart: collapsed. That was sad. It was very sad. But it was also
extremely convincing.
He sat up late that night again, running over the entries in his
notebook. The old story, as he pieced it out, ran like this:
It had been twelve years ago, when, according to the old files,
Clark had financed Beverly Carlysle's first starring venture. He
had, apparently, started out in the beginning only to give her the
publicity she needed. In devising it, however, he had shown a sort
of boyish recklessness and ingenuity that had caught the interest
of the press, and set newspaper men to chuckling wherever they got
together.
The Breaking Point |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde: to have missions. He should always say much more than he means,
and always mean much more than he says.
LADY HUNSTANTON. But how could he do both, dear?
MRS. ALLONBY. He should never run down other pretty women. That
would show he had no taste, or make one suspect that he had too
much. No; he should be nice about them all, but say that somehow
they don't attract him.
LADY STUTFIELD. Yes, that is always very, very pleasant to hear
about other women.
MRS. ALLONBY. If we ask him a question about anything, he should
give us an answer all about ourselves. He should invariably praise
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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 Jolly Corner by Henry James: man who has gone to sleep on some news of a great inheritance, and
then, after dreaming it away, after profaning it with matters
strange to it, has waked up again to serenity of certitude and has
only to lie and watch it grow. This was the drift of his patience
- that he had only to let it shine on him. He must moreover, with
intermissions, still have been lifted and borne; since why and how
else should he have known himself, later on, with the afternoon
glow intenser, no longer at the foot of his stairs - situated as
these now seemed at that dark other end of his tunnel - but on a
deep window-bench of his high saloon, over which had been spread,
couch-fashion, a mantle of soft stuff lined with grey fur that was
|
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 House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: to the Italian for safekeeping, and immediately recommenced
a series of pantomimic petitions for more.
Doubtless, more than one New-Englander--or, let him be of what
country he might, it is as likely to be the case--passed by,
and threw a look at the monkey, and went on, without imagining
how nearly his own moral condition was here exemplified. Clifford,
however, was a being of another order. He had taken childish
delight in the music, and smiled, too, at the figures which it
set in motion. But, after looking awhile at the long-tailed imp,
he was so shocked by his horrible ugliness, spiritual as well as
physical, that he actually began to shed tears; a weakness which
House of Seven Gables |
