| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Street of Seven Stars by Mary Roberts Rinehart: Harmony toyed with her spoon and waited for some mention of the
lessons. None came. Mrs. Boyer, having finished her tea, rose and
put down her cup.
"That was very refreshing," she said. "Where shall I find the
street-car? I walked out, but it is late."
"I'll take you to the car." Peter picked up his old hat.
"Thank you. I am always lost in this wretched town. I give the
conductors double tips to put me down where I want to go; but how
can they when it is the wrong car?" She bowed to Harmony without
shaking hands. "Thank you for the tea. It was really good. Where
do you get it?"
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, etc. by Oscar Wilde: Roses of shadow, since his rose is true?
It may seem strange that so great a dramatist as Shakespeare, who
realised his own perfection as an artist and his humanity as a man
on the ideal plane of stage-writing and stage-playing, should have
written in these terms about the theatre; but we must remember that
in Sonnets CX. and CXI. Shakespeare shows us that he too was
wearied of the world of puppets, and full of shame at having made
himself 'a motley to the view.' The 111th Sonnet is especially
bitter:-
O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide,
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,
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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 Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne: his interview with Hester, lent him unaccustomed physical energy,
and hurried him townward at a rapid pace. The pathway among the
woods seemed wilder, more uncouth with its rude natural
obstacles, and less trodden by the foot of man, than he
remembered it on his outward journey. But he leaped across the
plashy places, thrust himself through the clinging underbush,
climbed the ascent, plunged into the hollow, and overcame, in
short, all the difficulties of the track, with an unweariable
activity that astonished him. He could not but recall how
feebly, and with what frequent pauses for breath he had toiled
over the same ground, only two days before. As he drew near the
The Scarlet Letter |
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: all the wreck of the Spanish dominion in the Indies. The specie is
slow in coming, and the dear Baron is hard up. That is all.'
" 'It is a fact,' said Werbrust; 'I am taking his paper myself at
twenty per cent discount.'
"The news spread swift as fire in a straw rick. The most contradictory
reports got about. But such confidence was felt in the firm after the
two previous suspensions, that every one stuck to Nucingen's paper.
'Palma must lend us a hand,' said Werbrust.
"Now Palma was the Keller's oracle, and the Kellers were brimful of
Nucingen's paper. A hint from Palma would be enough. Werbrust arranged
with Palma, and he rang the alarm bell. There was a panic next day on
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