| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Grimm's Fairy Tales by Brothers Grimm: the king's son danced with nobody but her; and when anyone else asked
her to dance, he said, 'This lady is /my/ partner, sir.'
When night came she wanted to go home; and the king's son would go
with her, and said to himself, 'I will not lose her this time'; but,
however, she again slipped away from him, though in such a hurry that
she dropped her left golden slipper upon the stairs.
The prince took the shoe, and went the next day to the king his
father, and said, 'I will take for my wife the lady that this golden
slipper fits.' Then both the sisters were overjoyed to hear it; for
they had beautiful feet, and had no doubt that they could wear the
golden slipper. The eldest went first into the room where the slipper
Grimm's Fairy Tales |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Reef by Edith Wharton: upon her, and the desire to speak became merely a dim
disquietude, through which his looks, his words, his touch,
reached her as through a mist of bodily pain. Yet this
inertia was torn by wild flashes of resistance, and when
they were apart she began to prepare again what she meant to
say to him.
She knew he could not be with her without being aware of
this inner turmoil, and she hoped he would break the spell
by some releasing word. But she presently understood that
he recognized the futility of words, and was resolutely bent
on holding her to her own purpose of behaving as if nothing
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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 Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: as you will; but it must not be metrical. It may be
anything, but it must not be verse. A single heroic line may
very well pass and not disturb the somewhat larger stride of
the prose style; but one following another will produce an
instant impression of poverty, flatness, and disenchantment.
The same lines delivered with the measured utterance of verse
would perhaps seem rich in variety. By the more summary
enunciation proper to prose, as to a more distant vision,
these niceties of difference are lost. A whole verse is
uttered as one phrase; and the ear is soon wearied by a
succession of groups identical in length. The prose writer,
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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 Malbone: An Oldport Romance by Thomas Wentworth Higginson: obliged to stoop for it; so all that was noblest in him paid
allegiance to Hope. From the moment they again met, his
wayward heart reverted to her. He had been in a dream, he said
to himself; he would conquer it and be only hers; he would go
away with her into the forests and green fields she loved, or
he would share in the life of usefulness for which she yearned.
But then, what was he to do with this little waif from the
heart's tropics,--once tampered with, in an hour of mad
dalliance, and now adhering in-separably to his life?
Supposing him ready to separate from her, could she be detached
from him?
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