| 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: And then in came a wee girl of seven, with dirty face and pure blue
eyes and a smutched and insufficient dress.
"Mamma says," she recited shrilly, "that you must give me eighty cents
for the grocer and nineteen for the milkman and five cents for me to
buy hokey-pokey with--but she didn't say that," the elf concluded,
with a hopeful but honest grin.
Finch shelled out the money, counting it twice, but I noticed that the
total sum that the small girl received was one dollar and four cents.
"That's the right kind of a law," remarked Finch, as he carefully
broke some of the stitches of my hatband so that it would assuredly
come off within a few days--"the law of supply and demand. But
Options |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from An Episode Under the Terror by Honore de Balzac: a faint, flickering light through the fog. Fear gave her eyes. She
saw, or thought she saw, something sinister about the stranger's
features. Her old terrors awoke; she took advantage of a kind of
hesitation on his part, slipped through the shadows to the door of the
solitary house, pressed a spring, and vanished swiftly as a phantom.
For awhile the stranger stood motionless, gazing up at the house. It
was in some sort a type of the wretched dwellings in the suburb; a
tumble-down hovel, built of rough stones, daubed over with a coat of
yellowish stucco, and so riven with great cracks that there seemed to
be danger lest the slightest puff of wind might blow it down. The
roof, covered with brown moss-grown tiles, had given way in several
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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 Lemorne Versus Huell by Elizabeth Drew Stoddard: was over, and I saw him making his way out of the hall when it was
finished.
I had been sent in the carriage, of course; but several carriages
were in advance of it before the walk, and I waited there for
William to drive up. When he did so, I saw by the oscillatory
motion of his head, though his arms and whiphand were perfectly
correct, that he was inebriated. It was his first occasion of
meeting fellow-coachmen in full dress, and the occasion had proved
too much for him. My hand, however, was on the coach door, when I
heard Mr. Uxbridge say, at my elbow,
"It is not safe for you."
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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 Iliad by Homer: gleaming corslet, son of Priam, hurled a spear at Ajax from amid
the crowd and missed him, but he hit Leucus, the brave comrade of
Ulysses, in the groin, as he was dragging the body of Simoeisius
over to the other side; so he fell upon the body and loosed his
hold upon it. Ulysses was furious when he saw Leucus slain, and
strode in full armour through the front ranks till he was quite
close; then he glared round about him and took aim, and the
Trojans fell back as he did so. His dart was not sped in vain,
for it struck Democoon, the bastard son of Priam, who had come to
him from Abydos, where he had charge of his father's mares.
Ulysses, infuriated by the death of his comrade, hit him with his
The Iliad |
