| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: whiteness of Norman beauty. Projecting eyes, undecided in color, gave
to her face, the rounded outline of which had no dignity, an air of
surprise and sheepish simplicity, which was suitable perhaps for an
old maid. If Rose had not been, as she was, really innocent, she would
have seemed so. An aquiline nose contrasted curiously with the
narrowness of her forehead; for it is rare that that form of nose does
not carry with it a fine brow. In spite of her thick red lips, a sign
of great kindliness, the forehead revealed too great a lack of ideas
to allow of the heart being guided by intellect; she was evidently
benevolent without grace. How severely we reproach Virtue for its
defects, and how full of indulgence we all are for the pleasanter
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Poems by Oscar Wilde: The sappy billets on the waning fire,
And laughs to see the sudden lightening scare
His children at their play, and yet, - the spring is in the air;
Already the slim crocus stirs the snow,
And soon yon blanched fields will bloom again
With nodding cowslips for some lad to mow,
For with the first warm kisses of the rain
The winter's icy sorrow breaks to tears,
And the brown thrushes mate, and with bright eyes the rabbit peers
From the dark warren where the fir-cones lie,
And treads one snowdrop under foot, and runs
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Philosophy 4 by Owen Wister: Mrs. Diggs of the Bird-in-Hand had retired at eleven, furious with rage,
but firm in dignity in spite of a sudden misadventure. Her hair, being
the subject of a sporting event, had remained steadily fixed in Billy's
mind,--steadily fixed throughout an entertainment which began at an
early hour to assume the features of a celebration. One silver-fizz
before dinner is nothing; but dinner did not come at once, and the boys
were thirsty. The hair of Mrs. Diggs had caught Billy's eye again
immediately upon her entrance to inform them that the meal was ready;
and whenever she reentered with a new course from the kitchen, Billy's
eye wandered back to it, although Mr. Diggs had become full of anecdotes
about the Civil War. It was partly Grecian: a knot stood out behind to
|
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 Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories by Alice Dunbar: sudden flashes of music, of glittering pageants and comic ones,
of befeathered and belled horses; a dream of colour and melody
and fantasy gone wild in an effervescent bubble of beauty that
shifts and changes and passes kaleidoscope-like before the
bewildered eye.
A bevy of bright-eyed girls and boys of that uncertain age that
hovers between childhood and maturity, were moving down Canal
Street when there was a sudden jostle with another crowd meeting
them. For a minute there was a deafening clamour of shouts and
laughter, cracking of the whips, which all maskers carry, a
jingle and clatter of carnival bells, and the masked and unmasked
The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories |
