| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle: Ho, landlord, a pot of ale!"
So the ale was brought and given to Little John. Then, blowing the
froth a little way to make room for his lips, he tilted the bottom
of the pot higher and higher, till it pointed to the sky, and he had
to shut his eyes to keep the dazzle of the sunshine out of them.
Then he took the pot away, for there was nothing in it, and heaved
a full deep sigh, looking at the others with moist eyes and shaking
his head solemnly.
"Ho, landlord!" cried the Peddler, "bring this good fellow another pot of ale,
for truly it is a credit to us all to have one among us who can empty
a canakin so lustily."
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: profitable to vanity, do they constitute reparation?--and to whom do I
owe reparation? But I love; I love passionately. My love is my life.
If I, without apparent motive, suggest to a young girl accustomed to
luxury, to elegance, to a life fruitful of all enjoyments of art, a
young girl who loves to idly listen at the opera to Rossini's music,--
if to her I should propose that she deprive herself of fifteen hundred
thousand francs in favor of broken-down old men, or scrofulous
paupers, she would turn her back on me and laugh, or her confidential
friend would tell her that I'm a crazy jester. If in an ecstasy of
love, I should paint to her the charms of a modest life, and a little
home on the banks of the Loire; if I were to ask her to sacrifice her
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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 Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart: nature. When Anne, the elder, was thirty-two and Lucy was
nineteen, a young man had come to the town. He was going east,
after spending the summer at a celebrated ranch in Wyoming--one
of those places where wealthy men send worthless and dissipated
sons, for a season of temperance, fresh air and hunting. The
sisters, of course, knew nothing of this, and the young
man's ardor rather carried them away. In a word, seven years
before, Lucy Haswell had married a young man whose name was given
as Aubrey Wallace.
Anne Haswell had married a carpenter in her native town, and was
a widow. For three months everything went fairly well. Aubrey
The Circular Staircase |
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 Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg by Mark Twain: without caring, for Hadleyburg was sufficient unto itself, and cared
not a rap for strangers or their opinions. Still, it would have
been well to make an exception in this one's case, for he was a
bitter man, and revengeful. All through his wanderings during a
whole year he kept his injury in mind, and gave all his leisure
moments to trying to invent a compensating satisfaction for it. He
contrived many plans, and all of them were good, but none of them
was quite sweeping enough: the poorest of them would hurt a great
many individuals, but what he wanted was a plan which would
comprehend the entire town, and not let so much as one person escape
unhurt. At last he had a fortunate idea, and when it fell into his
The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg |
