| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Juana by Honore de Balzac: slightly; all things, as in pictures of the Dutch school, looked
brown, even the faces. Between the shop and this living-room, so fine
in color and in its tone of patriarchal life, was a dark staircase
leading to a ware-room where the light, carefully distributed,
permitted the examination of goods. Above this were the apartments of
the merchant and his wife. Rooms for an apprentice and a servant-woman
were in a garret under the roof, which projected over the street and
was supported by buttresses, giving a somewhat fantastic appearance to
the exterior of the building. These chambers were now taken by the
merchant and his wife who gave up their own rooms to the officer who
was billeted upon them,--probably because they wished to avoid all
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau: I cannot expect, like Orpheus, to change the nature of the
rocks and trees and beasts.
I do not wish to quarrel with any man or nation. I do
not wish to split hairs, to make fine distinctions, or set
myself up as better than my neighbors. I seek rather, I may
say, even an excuse for conforming to the laws of the land.
I am but too ready to conform to them. Indeed, I have
reason to suspect myself on this head; and each year, as the
tax-gatherer comes round, I find myself disposed to review
the acts and position of the general and State governments,
and the spirit of the people to discover a pretext for conformity.
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Bunner Sisters by Edith Wharton: wedding gift to Evelina had left her without any resources beyond
her daily earnings, and these had steadily dwindled as the winter
passed. She had long since renounced her weekly visit to the
butcher, and had reduced her other expenses to the narrowest
measure; but the most systematic frugality had not enabled her to
put by any money. In spite of her dogged efforts to maintain the
prosperity of the little shop, her sister's absence had already
told on its business. Now that Ann Eliza had to carry the bundles
to the dyer's herself, the customers who called in her absence,
finding the shop locked, too often went elsewhere. Moreover, after
several stern but unavailing efforts, she had had to give up the
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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 Extracts From Adam's Diary by Mark Twain: said it was coeval with the creation." Alas, I am indeed to blame.
Would that I were not witty; oh, would that I had never had that
radiant thought!
Next Year
We have named it Cain. She caught it while I was up country
trapping on the North Shore of the Erie; caught it in the timber
a couple of miles from our dug-out--or it might have been four,
she isn't certain which. It resembles us in some ways, and may
be a relation. That is what she thinks, but this is an error,
in my judgment. The difference in size warrants the conclusion
that it is a different and new kind of animal--a fish, perhaps,
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