| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Touchstone by Edith Wharton: savage wish that she would not speak the other woman's name;
nothing else seemed to matter. "You seem to do a lot of reading,"
he said.
She still earnestly confronted him. "I was keeping this for you--
I thought it might interest you," she said, with an air of gentle
insistence.
He stood up and turned away. He was sure she knew that he had
taken the review and he felt that he was beginning to hate her
again.
"I haven't time for such things," he said, indifferently. As he
moved to the door he heard her take a precipitate step forward;
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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 Beasts of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: torches in their left hands and ready spears in their right.
They held back timorously against those behind, who were
pushing them forward.
The shrieks of the panther's victim, mingled with those of
the great cat, had wrought mightily upon their poor nerves,
and now the awful silence of the dark interior seemed even
more terribly ominous than had the frightful screaming.
Presently one of those who was being forced unwillingly
within hit upon a happy scheme for learning first the precise
nature of the danger which menaced him from the silent interior.
With a quick movement he flung his lighted torch into the
The Beasts of Tarzan |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Chouans by Honore de Balzac: small, irregular square, where the soil is held up by a buttressed
wall, which forms a balustrade and communicates by a flight of steps
with the Promenade. This public walk, like a second cornice, extends
round the rock a few rods below the square of Saint-Leonard; it is a
broad piece of ground planted with trees, and it joins the
fortifications of the town. About ten rods below the walls and rocks
which support this Promenade (due to a happy combination of
indestructible slate and patient industry) another circular road
exists, called the "Queen's Staircase"; this is cut in the rock itself
and leads to a bridge built across the Nancon by Anne of Brittany.
Below this road, which forms a third cornice, gardens descend, terrace
The Chouans |
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 The Aspern Papers by Henry James: inevitable challenge which in Italy precedes the hospitable act.
As a general thing I was irritated by this survival of
medieval manners, though as I liked the old I suppose I ought
to have liked it; but I was so determined to be genial that I
took my false card out of my pocket and held it up to her,
smiling as if it were a magic token. It had the effect of
one indeed, for it brought her, as I say, all the way down.
I begged her to hand it to her mistress, having first written on
it in Italian the words, "Could you very kindly see a gentleman,
an American, for a moment?" The little maid was not hostile,
and I reflected that even that was perhaps something gained.
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