| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Letters from England by Elizabeth Davis Bancroft: liveried servants. The forms of society and the standard of dress,
too, are very like ours, except that a duchess or a countess has
more hereditary point lace and diamonds. The general style of
dress, perhaps, is not so tasteful, so simply elegant as ours. Upon
the whole I think more highly of our own country (I mean from a
social point of view alone) than before I came abroad. There is
less superiority over us in manners and all the social arts than I
could have believed possible in a country where a large and wealthy
class have been set apart from time immemorial to create, as it
were, a social standard of high refinement. The chief difference
that I perceive is this: In our country the position of everybody
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: ordinary servant. "Wouldn't it have been better to have taken my
advice and that of Hsu Ching-cheng and Yuan Chang instead of
having put them to death for endeavouring in their earnestness to
save the country? What about your old conservative friends? Can
they be depended upon as pillars of state?" Or some other
"I-told-you-so" language of this kind.
From their exile in Hsian decrees continued to be issued in his
name, and when affairs began to be adjusted, and the allies
insisted on setting aside forever the pretentions of the
anti-foreign Prince Tuan and his son, banishing the former to
perpetual exile, our hopes ran high that the Emperor would be
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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 My Antonia by Willa Cather: and that went better. The boy was so restless that I had not had
a chance to look at his face before. My first impression was right;
he really was faun-like. He hadn't much head behind his ears,
and his tawny fleece grew down thick to the back of his neck.
His eyes were not frank and wide apart like those of the other boys,
but were deep-set, gold-green in colour, and seemed sensitive to the light.
His mother said he got hurt oftener than all the others put together.
He was always trying to ride the colts before they were broken,
teasing the turkey gobbler, seeing just how much red the bull would
stand for, or how sharp the new axe was.
After the concert was over, Antonia brought out a big boxful of photographs:
My Antonia |
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 La Grenadiere by Honore de Balzac: health had perhaps filled and perfected the outlines. A forced smile,
full of quiet sadness, hovered continually on her pale lips; but when
the children, who were always with her, looked up at their mother, or
asked one of the incessant idle questions which convey so much to a
mother's ears, then the smile brightened, and expressed the joys of a
mother's love. Her gait was slow and dignified. Her dress never
varied; evidently she had made up her mind to think no more of her
toilette, and to forget a world by which she meant no doubt to be
forgotten. She wore a long, black gown, confined at the waist by a
watered-silk ribbon, and by way of scarf a lawn handkerchief with a
broad hem, the two ends passed carelessly through her waistband. The
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