| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Little Britain by Washington Irving: Britain was in all its glory.
It would do one's heart good to hear, on a club night, the
shouts of merriment, the snatches of song, and now and then
the choral bursts of half a dozen discordant voices, which issue
from this jovial mansion. At such times the street is lined with
listeners, who enjoy a delight equal to that of gazing into a
confectioner's window, or snuffing up the steams of a
cookshop.
There are two annual events which produce great stir and
sensation in Little Britain; these are St. Bartholomew's Fair,
and the Lord Mayor's Day. During the time of the fair, which
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from One Basket by Edna Ferber: turban, with your nose, until I proved to you that if the head
size was only big . . . Well, perhaps this needs just a lit-tle
lift here. Ju-u-ust a nip. There! That does it."
And that did it. Not that Sophy Decker ever tried to sell you a
hat against your judgment, taste, or will. She was too wise a
psychologist and too shrewd a businesswoman for that. She
preferred that you go out of her shop hatless rather than with an
unbecoming hat. But whether you bought or not you took with you
out of Sophy Decker's shop something more precious than any
hatbox ever contained. Just to hear her admonishing a customer,
her good-natured face all aglow:
One Basket |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Dynamiter by Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Van De Grift Stevenson: Thousands of persons of no mind at all, he reasoned, would be
found more equal to the part; could, that very instant, by
some decisive step, prove the lady's choice to have been well
inspired, and put a stop to this intolerable silence.
His eye, at this point, lighted on the hand. It was better
to fall by desperate councils than to continue as he was; and
with one tremulous swoop he pounced on the gloved fingers and
drew them to himself. One overt step, it had appeared to
him, would dissolve the spell of his embarrassment; in act,
he found it otherwise: he found himself no less incapable of
speech or further progress; and with the lady's hand in his,
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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 Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: and accomplishments to the rough country swains, and, indeed,
inferior in learning only to the parson. His appearance,
therefore, is apt to occasion some little stir at the tea-table
of a farmhouse, and the addition of a supernumerary dish of cakes
or sweetmeats, or, peradventure, the parade of a silver teapot.
Our man of letters, therefore, was peculiarly happy in the smiles
of all the country damsels. How he would figure among them in the
churchyard, between services on Sundays; gathering grapes for
them from the wild vines that overran the surrounding trees;
reciting for their amusement all the epitaphs on the tombstones;
or sauntering, with a whole bevy of them, along the banks of the
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow |
