| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: to pass glorious afternoons making plans. I was for ever
making plans, and if nothing came of them, what did it matter?
The mere making had been a joy. To me this out-of-the-way
corner was always a wonderful and a mysterious place,
where my castles in the air stood close together in radiant rows,
and where the strangest and most splendid adventures befell me;
for the hours I passed <73> in it and the people I met in it
were all enchanted.
Standing there and looking round with happy eyes,
I forgot the existence of the cousins. I could have cried
for joy at being there again. It was the home of my fathers,
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Philosophy 4 by Owen Wister: inspiration. He saw the whole thing as it really was. "By Jove!" said
he, "we couldn't get back in time for dinner."
"There's my bonny boy!" said Bertie, with pride; and he touched up the
black gelding. Uneasiness had left both of them. Cambridge was
manifestly impossible; an error in judgment; food compelled them to seek
the Bird-in-Hand. "We'll try Quincy, anyhow," Bertie said. Billy
suggested that they inquire of people on the road. This provided a new
sporting event: they could bet upon the answers. Now, the roads, not
populous at noon, had grown solitary in the sweetness of the long
twilight. Voices of birds there were; and little, black, quick brooks,
full to the margin grass, shot under the roadway through low bridges.
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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 Witch, et. al by Anton Chekhov: bedclothes in her arms, went out.
"Why did you marry me into this family, mother?" said Lipa.
"One has to be married, daughter. It was not us who ordained it."
And a feeling of inconsolable woe was ready to take possession of
them. But it seemed to them that someone was looking down from
the height of the heavens, out of the blue from where the stars
were seeing everything that was going on in Ukleevo, watching
over them. And however great was wickedness, still the night was
calm and beautiful, and still in God's world there is and will be
truth and justice as calm and beautiful, and everything on earth
is only waiting to be made one with truth and justice, even as
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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 When a Man Marries by Mary Roberts Rinehart: tin under feet, and a comfortable and companionable odor of
tobacco. I moved a very little, and then I saw that it was a
man--the height and erectness told me which man. And just at that
instant he saw me.
"Good Lord!" he ejaculated, and throwing his cigar away he came
across quickly. "Why, Mrs. Wilson, what in the world are you
doing here? I thought--they said--"
"That I was sulking again?" I finished disagreeably. "Perhaps I
am. In fact, I'm quite sure of it."
"You are not," he said severely. "You have been asleep in a
February night, in the open air, with less clothing on than I
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