| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Whirligigs by O. Henry: strangers dwelt in the halls of his fathers.
A cloud of dust was rolling, slowly up the parched
street, with something travelling in the midst of it. A
little breeze wafted the cloud to one side, and a new,
brightly painted carryall, drawn by a slothful gray horse,
became visible. The vehicle deflected from the middle
of the street as it neared Goree's office, and stopped in the
gutter directly in front of his door.
On the front seat sat a gaunt, tall man, dressed in
black broadcloth, his rigid hands incarcerated in yellow
kid gloves. On the back seat was a lady who triumphed
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Bride of Lammermoor by Walter Scott: realise the stories they tell of the slother: we have almost eat
up the last green leaf on the plant, and have nothing left for it
but to drop from the tree and break our necks."
"Do not fear it," said Ravenswood; "there is a fate watches for
us, and we too have a stake in the revolution that is now
impending, and which already has alarmed many a bosom."
"What fate--what revolution?" inquired his compation. "We have
had one revolution too much already, I think."
Ravenswood interrupted him by putting into his hands a letter.
"Oh," answered Bucklaw, "my dream's out. I thought I heard
Caleb this morning pressing some unfortunate fellow to a drink of
The Bride of Lammermoor |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: great root-idea of their philosophy, we must not imitate them. We must
not believe that the last of the Alexandrians was under no divine
teaching, because he had be-systemed himself into confused notions of
what that teaching was like. Yes, there was good in poor old Proclus;
and it too came from the only source whence all good comes. Were there
no good in him I could not laugh at him as I have done; I could only
hate him. There are moments when he rises above his theories; moments
when he recurs in spirit, if not in the letter, to the faith of Homer,
almost to the faith of Philo. Whether these are the passages of his
which his modern admirers prize most, I cannot tell. I should fancy
not: nevertheless I will read you one of them.
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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 Market-Place by Harold Frederic: His nerves were by no means in so serene a state as his reason
told him they ought to be. The disquieting impression of bad
dreams hung about him. The waking hour--always an evil
time for him in these latter days of anxiety--had been this
morning a peculiarly depressing affair. It had seemed
to him, in the first minutes of reviving consciousness,
that he was a hopelessly ruined and discredited man;
the illusion of disaster had been, indeed, so complete
and vivid that, even now, more than an hour later,
he had not shaken off its effects.
He applied his mental energies, as he strolled along
The Market-Place |
