| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tom Grogan by F. Hopkinson Smith: had taken it out with--a--great--big--spike!--dwelling on the last
words as if they belonged to some wonderful fairy-tale. The
little fellow sat up in her lap and laughed as he patted her
breast joyously with his thin hand. "Cully could do it," he
shouted in high glee; "Cully can do anything." Babcock,
apparently, made no more difference to her than if he had been an
extra chair.
As she moved about her rooms afterward, calling to her men from
the open door, consulting with Jennie, her arms about her neck, or
stopping at intervals to croon over her child, she seemed to him
to lose all identity with the woman on the dock. The spirit that
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dust by Mr. And Mrs. Haldeman-Julius: "turn about's fair play," he, too, took a frank look, oddly
stirred by the sophisticated touches which added so subtly to her
natural beauty. From her soft, thick brown hair done up cleverly
in the latest mode and her narrow eyebrows arched, oh, so
carefully, and penciled with such skill, to that same trim
provocative pump and disconcerting flash of silk-clad ankle, Rose
had dash. Hers was that gift of style which is as unmistakable as
the gift of song and which, like it, is sometimes to be found
unexpectedly in any village or small town.
Martin drank in every detail wonderingly, with a kind of awe. All
his life, it seemed to him, for the last thirteen years
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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 Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: Samson's bees did in that of the lion. But bees or flies, each
sprang from an egg, independent of the carcass, having a vitality of
its own: it was fostered by the carcass it fed on during
development; but bred from it it was not, any more than Marat was
bred from the decay of the Ancien Regime. There are flies which, by
feeding on putridity, become poisonous themselves, as did Marat:
but even they owe their vitality and organisation to something
higher than that on which they feed; and each of them, however,
defaced and debased, was at first a "thought of God." All true
manhood consists in the defiance of circumstances; and if any man be
the creature of circumstances, it is because he has become so, like
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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 Georgics by Virgil: Still will be some, whose form thou fain wouldst change;
Renew them still; with yearly choice of young
Preventing losses, lest too late thou rue.
Nor steeds crave less selection; but on those
Thou think'st to rear, the promise of their line,
From earliest youth thy chiefest pains bestow.
See from the first yon high-bred colt afield,
His lofty step, his limbs' elastic tread:
Dauntless he leads the herd, still first to try
The threatening flood, or brave the unknown bridge,
By no vain noise affrighted; lofty-necked,
Georgics |
