| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Baby Mine by Margaret Mayo: Willie. I said to myself, 'any girl of that age who prefers
children to young chaps of my age, is the girl for me.' "
"I see," assented Jimmy lamely. It was his first remark during
dinner.
"After that, I no longer hesitated. You know, Jimmy, I have
decision."
"Yes, I have noticed," admitted Jimmy, without conviction.
"In fifteen minutes," said Alfred, "I had learned all about the
young lady's antecedents."
Having finished his soup, and resisted a childish impulse to tip
the plate and scrape the bottom of it, Jimmy was now looking
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas: the miseries of poor human nature, always dissatisfied with
what it has, ever desirous of what it has not.
In the position of Porthos, D'Artagnan would have been
perfectly happy; and to make Porthos contented there was
wanting -- what? five letters to put before his three names,
a tiny coronet to paint upon the panels of his carriage!
"I shall pass all my life," thought D'Artagnan, "in seeking
for a man who is really contented with his lot."
Whilst making this reflection, chance seemed, as it were, to
give him the lie direct. When Porthos had left him to give
some orders he saw Musqueton approaching. The face of the
Twenty Years After |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Captain Stormfield by Mark Twain: knife-grinders - a lot of people nobody ever heard of?"
"That is the heavenly justice of it - they warn't rewarded
according to their deserts, on earth, but here they get their
rightful rank. That tailor Billings, from Tennessee, wrote poetry
that Homer and Shakespeare couldn't begin to come up to; but nobody
would print it, nobody read it but his neighbors, an ignorant lot,
and they laughed at it. Whenever the village had a drunken frolic
and a dance, they would drag him in and crown him with cabbage
leaves, and pretend to bow down to him; and one night when he was
sick and nearly starved to death, they had him out and crowned him,
and then they rode him on a rail about the village, and everybody
|
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 Princess by Alfred Tennyson: If this be he,--or a dragged mawkin, thou,
That tends to her bristled grunters in the sludge:'
For I was drenched with ooze, and torn with briers,
More crumpled than a poppy from the sheath,
And all one rag, disprinced from head to heel.
Then some one sent beneath his vaulted palm
A whispered jest to some one near him, 'Look,
He has been among his shadows.' 'Satan take
The old women and their shadows! (thus the King
Roared) make yourself a man to fight with men.
Go: Cyril told us all.'
|
