| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Glasses by Henry James: never was even so alembicated as to declare just for the sake of
the point that he wouldn't. He simply and pointlessly didn't, and
when at the end of three months I asked him what was the use of
talking with such a fellow his nearest approach to a justification
was to say that what made him want to help her was just the
deficiencies I dwelt on. I could only reply without gross
developments: "Oh if you're as sorry for her as that!" I too was
nearly as sorry for her as that, but it only led me to be sorrier
still for other victims of this compassion. With Dawling as with
me the compassion was at first in excess of any visible motive; so
that when eventually the motive was supplied each could to a
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Island Nights' Entertainments by Robert Louis Stevenson: when the day went, and no business came at all, I began to get
downhearted; and, about three in the afternoon, I went out for a
stroll to cheer me up. On the green I saw a white man coming with
a cassock on, by which and by the face of him I knew he was a
priest. He was a good-natured old soul to look at, gone a little
grizzled, and so dirty you could have written with him on a piece
of paper.
"Good day, sir," said I.
He answered me eagerly in native.
"Don't you speak any English?" said I.
"French," says he.
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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 Desert Gold by Zane Grey: Indian was affected by her loveliness, her helplessness, or her
terror. Yaqui had seen Mercedes only a few times, and upon each
of these he had appeared to be fascinated. Could the strange
Indian, because his hate for Mexicans was so great, be gloating
over her misery? Something about Yaqui--a noble austerity of
countenance--made Gale feel his suspicion unjust.
Presently Belding called his rangers to him, and then Thorne.
"Listen to this," he said, earnestly. "I'll go out and have a talk
with Rojas. I'll try to reason with him; tell him to think a long
time before he sheds blood on Uncle Sam's soil. That he's now
after an American's wife! I'll not commit myself, nor will I refuse
Desert Gold |
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 Massimilla Doni by Honore de Balzac: Any one with a soul for fantasy would have looked to see, on one of
those noble flights of steps, standing by a vase with medallions in
bas-relief, a negro boy swathed about the loins with scarlet stuff,
and holding in one hand a parasol over the Duchess' head, and in the
other the train of her long skirt, while she listened to Emilio Memmi.
And how far grander the Venetian would have looked in such a dress as
the Senators wore whom Titian painted.
But alas! in this fairy palace, not unlike that of the Peschieri at
Genoa, the Duchess Cataneo obeyed the edicts of Victorine and the
Paris fashions. She had on a muslin dress and broad straw hat, pretty
shot silk shoes, thread lace stockings that a breath of air would have
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