| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Emma McChesney & Co. by Edna Ferber: pockets, stood in the bedroom door and watched her plunge into
the innermost depths of the clothes-closet.
"What's the idea, Emma?"
"Looking for something," came back his wife's muffled tones.
A long wait.
"Can I help?"
"I've got it!" cried Emma, and emerged triumphant, flushed,
smiling, holding a garment at arm's length, aloft.
"What----"
Emma shook it smartly, turned it this way and that, held it up
under her chin by the sleeves.
Emma McChesney & Co. |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Montezuma's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard: in Mexico, a sign and a token of His triumph over devils, and there
it shall stand while the world endures.
'You speak rashly, my brother,' Guatemoc answered, proudly enough,
though I saw him quail at the evil omen of my words. 'I say you
speak rashly, and were you overheard there are those,
notwithstanding the rank we have given you, the honour which you
have won in war and council, and that you have passed the stone of
sacrifice, who might force you to look again upon the faces of the
beings you blaspheme. What worse thing has been done to your
Christian God than has been done again and again to our gods by
your white kindred? But let us talk no more of this matter, and I
Montezuma's Daughter |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Market-Place by Harold Frederic: at a time, and swung along its length with a vigour and
exhilaration of movement he had not known, it seemed to him,
for years. He felt the excitement of a new incentive
bubbling in his veins.
"Her Ladyship is in her sitting-room, sir," a domestic
replied to his enquiry in the hall. The title arrested
his attention from some fresh point of view, and he
pondered it, as he made his way along the corridor,
and knocked at a door. At the sound of a voice he pushed
open the door, and went in.
Lady Cressage, looking up, noted, with aroused interest,
The Market-Place |
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 Eryxias by Platonic Imitator: quarrelling: so I said,--I heard that very argument used in the Lyceum
yesterday by a wise man, Prodicus of Ceos; but the audience thought that he
was talking mere nonsense, and no one could be persuaded that he was
speaking the truth. And when at last a certain talkative young gentleman
came in, and, taking his seat, began to laugh and jeer at Prodicus,
tormenting him and demanding an explanation of his argument, he gained the
ear of the audience far more than Prodicus.
Can you repeat the discourse to us? Said Erasistratus.
SOCRATES: If I can only remember it, I will. The youth began by asking
Prodicus, In what way did he think that riches were a good and in what an
evil? Prodicus answered, as you did just now, that they were a good to
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