| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Daisy Miller by Henry James: by the custom of the place. Flirting is a purely American custom;
it doesn't exist here. So when you show yourself in public with
Mr. Giovanelli, and without your mother--"
"Gracious! poor Mother!" interposed Daisy.
"Though you may be flirting, Mr. Giovanelli is not;
he means something else."
"He isn't preaching, at any rate," said Daisy with vivacity.
"And if you want very much to know, we are neither of us flirting;
we are too good friends for that: we are very intimate friends."
"Ah!" rejoined Winterbourne, "if you are in love with each other,
it is another affair."
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: Pygmies in his lion's skin, and carried them home to Greece,
for the children of King Eurystheus to play with. But this is a
mistake. He left them, one and all, within their own territory,
where, for aught I can tell, their descendants are alive to the
present day, building their little houses, cultivating their
little fields, spanking their little children, waging their
little warfare with the cranes, doing their little business,
whatever it may be, and reading their little histories of
ancient times. In those histories, perhaps, it stands recorded,
that, a great many centuries ago, the valiant Pygmies avenged
the death of the Giant Antaeus by scaring away the mighty
Tanglewood Tales |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Moran of the Lady Letty by Frank Norris: Though a larger boat than the "Bertha Millner," she was rolling in
lamentable fashion, and every laboring heave showed her bottom
incrusted with barnacles and seaweed.
Her fore and main tops'ls and to'gallants'ls were set, as also
were her lower stays'ls and royals. But the braces seemed to have
parted, and the yards were swinging back and forth in their ties.
The spanker was brailed up, and the spanker boom thrashed idly
over the poop as the bark rolled and rolled and rolled. The
mainmast was working in its shoe, the rigging and backstays
sagged. An air of abandonment, of unspeakable loneliness, of
abomination hung about her. Never had Wilbur seen anything more
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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 Juana by Honore de Balzac: Italian was Juana's maternal language.
"I should find," she continued, with a glance at Montefiore in which
shone the purity of the cherubim, "I should find in HIM my dear
religion, him and God--God and him. Is he to be you?" she said. "Yes,
surely it will be you," she cried, after a pause. "Come, and see the
picture my father brought me from Italy."
She took a candle, made a sign to Montefiore, and showed him at the
foot of her bed a Saint Michael overthrowing the demon.
"Look!" she said, "has he not your eyes? When I saw you from my window
in the street, our meeting seemed to me a sign from heaven. Every day
during my morning meditation, while waiting for my mother to call me
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