| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Heart of the West by O. Henry: robes, "tear me down two panels of that fence, so I can drive in. That
is old man Redruth's shanty. I thought we must be nigh it. They took
him to the foolish house in August."
Cheerfully the four passengers sprang at the snow-capped rails. The
exhorted team tugged the coach up the slant to the door of the edifice
from which a mid-summer madness had ravished its proprietor. The
driver and two of the passengers began to unhitch. Judge Menefee
opened the door of the coach, and removed his hat.
"I have to announce, Miss Garland," said he, "the enforced suspension
of our journey. The driver asserts that the risk in travelling the
mountain road by night is too great even to consider. It will be
Heart of the West |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer: as it was possible to make out in the fog, only one other was aboard--
the half-clad brown man who navigated her--and who had carried us through
the cellars. The murk had grown denser and now shut us in like a box.
The throb of the motor--the hissing breath of the two who fought--
with so much at issue--these sounds and the wash of the water alone
broke the eerie stillness.
By slow degrees, and with a reptilian agility horrible to watch,
Fu-Manchu was neutralizing the advantage gained by Weymouth.
His clawish fingers were fast in the big man's throat; the right hand
with its deadly needle was forcing down the left of his opponent.
He had been underneath, but now he was gaining the upper place.
The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Astoria by Washington Irving: best hunting and trapping grounds, and with the remote tribes,
whom they encouraged to bring their peltries to the settlements.
In this way the trade augmented, and was drawn from remote
quarters to Montreal. Every now and then a large body of Ottawas,
Hurons, and other tribes who hunted the countries bordering on
the great lakes, would come down in a squadron of light canoes,
laden with beaver skins, and other spoils of their year's
hunting. The canoes would be unladen, taken on shore, and their
contents disposed in order. A camp of birch bark would be pitched
outside of the town, and a kind of primitive fair opened with
that grave ceremonial so dear to the Indians. An audience would
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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 The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: daughter of Adolphus of Manheim, thus reduced to an income of twenty-
four thousand livres, lost herself in arithmetical exercises that
muddled her wits.
" 'I have ALWAYS had six thousand francs for our dress allowance,' she
said to Malvina. 'Why, how did your father find money? We shall have
nothing now with twenty-four thousand francs; it is destitution! Oh!
if my father could see me so come down in the world, it would kill him
if he were not dead already! Poor Wilhelmine!' and she began to cry.
"Malvina, puzzled to know how to comfort her mother, represented to
her that she was still young and pretty, that rose-color still became
her, that she could continue to go to the Opera and the Bouffons,
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