| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart: ankle: my mother always was a firm believer in spice poultices.
It's wonderful what they will do in croup! And then I took the
children and went down to see the wreck. It was Sunday, and the
mister had gone to church; hasn't missed a day since he took the
pledge nine years ago. And on the way I met two people, a man and
a woman. They looked half dead, so I sent them right here for
breakfast and some soap and water. I always say soap is better
than liquor after a shock."
Hotchkiss was listening absently: McKnight was whistling under his
breath, staring down across the field to where a break in the woods
showed a half dozen telegraph poles, the line of the railroad.
The Man in Lower Ten |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson: would be that! But perhaps the skipper was a humorist: or perhaps
a prophet, reminding people of the seriousness of life by this
preposterous token.
At Creil, as at Noyon, Saint Joseph seemed a favourite saint on the
score of punctuality. Day and hour can be specified; and grateful
people do not fail to specify them on a votive tablet, when prayers
have been punctually and neatly answered. Whenever time is a
consideration, Saint Joseph is the proper intermediary. I took a
sort of pleasure in observing the vogue he had in France, for the
good man plays a very small part in my religion at home. Yet I
could not help fearing that, where the Saint is so much commanded
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