| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Options by O. Henry: some business. We'll take up your case afterward."
The lady whom Percival ushered in was young and petulantly, decidedly,
freshly, consciously, and intentionally pretty. She was dressed with
such expensive plainness that she made you consider lace and ruffles
as mere tatters and rags. But one great ostrich plume that she wore
would have marked her anywhere in the army of beauty as the wearer of
the merry helmet of Navarre.
Miss De Ormond accepted the swivel chair at Blue-Tie's desk. Then the
gentlemen drew leather-upholstered seats conveniently near, and spoke
of the weather.
"Yes," said she, "I noticed it was warmer. But I mustn't take up too
Options |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Elixir of Life by Honore de Balzac: of conscience with Dona Elvira and Felipe.
At length, however, despite the prodigious care that the great
magnifico, Don Juan Belvidero, took of himself, the days of
decrepitude came upon him, and with those days the constant
importunity of physical feebleness, an importunity all the more
distressing by contrast with the wealth of memories of his
impetuous youth and the sensual pleasures of middle age. The
unbeliever who in the height of his cynical humor had been wont
to persuade others to believe in laws and principles at which he
scoffed, must repose nightly upon a PERHAPS. The great Duke, the
pattern of good breeding, the champion of many a carouse, the
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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 Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg by Mark Twain: my legal rights, and am not accustomed to being frightened at
bluster." [Applause.] He sat down. "Dr." Harkness saw an
opportunity here. He was one of the two very rich men of the place,
and Pinkerton was the other. Harkness was proprietor of a mint;
that is to say, a popular patent medicine. He was running for the
Legislature on one ticket, and Pinkerton on the other. It was a
close race and a hot one, and getting hotter every day. Both had
strong appetites for money; each had bought a great tract of land,
with a purpose; there was going to be a new railway, and each wanted
to be in the Legislature and help locate the route to his own
advantage; a single vote might make the decision, and with it two or
The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg |
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 Varieties of Religious Experience by William James: In the Mohammedan world the Sufi sect and various dervish bodies
are the possessors of the mystical tradition. The Sufis have
existed in Persia from the earliest times, and as their pantheism
is so at variance with the hot and rigid monotheism of the Arab
mind, it has been suggested that Sufism must have been inoculated
into Islam by Hindu influences. We Christians know little of
Sufism, for its secrets are disclosed only to those initiated.
To give its existence a certain liveliness in your minds, I will
quote a Moslem document, and pass away from the subject.
Al-Ghazzali, a Persian philosopher and theologian, who flourished
in the eleventh century, and ranks as one of the greatest doctors
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