| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from One Basket by Edna Ferber: marching by today?" He flung his arms out in a great gesture of
longing. The red veins stood out on his forehead. "Where's my
son! Answer me that, you two selfish, miserable women. Where's
my son!" Then, as they huddled together, frightened, wild-eyed.
"Out of my house! Out of my house! Before I hurt you!"
They fled, terrified. The door banged behind them.
Jo stood, shaking, in the center of the room. Then he reached
for a chair, gropingly, and sat down. He passed one moist,
flabby hand over his forehead and it came away wet. The
telephone rang. He sat still. It sounded far away and
unimportant, like something forgotten. But it rang and rang
One Basket |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton: lay the four fatal envelopes; and her next affair was to make up
her mind what to do with them.
To destroy them on the spot had seemed, at first thought,
inevitable: it might be saving Ellie as well as herself. But
such a step seemed to Susy to involve departure on the morrow,
and this in turn involved notifying Ellie, whose letter she had
vainly scanned for an address. Well--perhaps Clarissa's nurse
would know where one could write to her mother; it was unlikely
that even Ellie would go off without assuring some means of
communication with her child. At any rate, there was nothing to
be done that night: nothing but to work out the details of
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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 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan by Honore de Balzac: "I first noticed this beautiful passion about the middle of the winter
of 1829. Every Friday, at the opera, I observed a young man, about
thirty years of age, in the orchestra stalls, who evidently came there
for me. He was always in the same stall, gazing at me with eyes of
fire, but, seemingly, saddened by the distance between us, perhaps by
the hopelessness of reaching me."
"Poor fellow! When a man loves he becomes eminently stupid," said the
marquise.
"Between every act he would slip into the corridor," continued the
princess, smiling at her friend's epigrammatic remark. "Once or twice,
either to see me or to make me see him, he looked through the glass
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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 Brother of Daphne by Dornford Yates: palm."
"How many biscuits have yon taken?"
"Seven, and two buns. My sister's awfully proud of them. But
about this tie."
"You shouldn't wear made-up ties," she said severely.
I sat up and looked at her. Mischievously she regarded the
ceiling. Presently:
"Note the awful silence," I said.
"And dickeys are going out too."
"Look here," said I, "I shall undress in a minute. Just to show
you. These are matters touching the reputation."
The Brother of Daphne |
