| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Rezanov by Gertrude Atherton: more civilized than your race, which never repents."
The door of one of the smaller rooms stood open,
and as they took advantage of this oversight with
a singular concert of motive, he clasped both her
hands in his. "Are you angry with me?" he asked
softly. He dared not close the door, but his back
was square against it, and the other guests were
moving down to the refectory.
"For liking such horrid sport?"
"We have no time to waste in coquetry."
Her eyes melted, but she could not resist planting
Rezanov |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Virginian by Owen Wister: have yu' got, James?
"Only two."
"My! Ain't it most three years since yu' maried? Yu' mustn't let
time creep ahaid o' yu', James.
The father once more grinned at his guests, who themselves turned
sheepish and polite; for Mrs. Westfall came in, brisk and hearty,
and set the meat upon the table. After that, it was she who
talked. The guests ate scrupulously, muttering, "Yes, ma'am," and
"No, ma'am," in their plates, while their hostess told them of
increasing families upon Bear Creek, and the expected
school-teacher, and little Alfred's early teething, and how it
The Virginian |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Shadow out of Time by H. P. Lovecraft: The essence was always the same - a person of keen thoughtfulness
seized a strange secondary life and leading for a greater or lesser
period an utterly alien existence typified at first by vocal and
bodily awkwardness, an later by a wholesale acquisition of scientific,
historic, artistic, and anthropologic knowledge; an acquisition
carried on with feverish zest and with a wholly abnormal absorptive
power. Then a sudden return of rightful consciousness, intermittently
plagued ever after with vague unplaceable dreams suggesting fragments
of some hideous memory elaborately blotted out.
And the close
resemblance of those nightmares to my own - even in some of the
Shadow out of Time |
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 Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton: their dreary annual garden-parties every family on the
Cliffs, because of the Sillerton-Pennilow-Dagonet
connection, had to draw lots and send an unwilling
representative.
"It's a wonder," Mrs. Welland remarked, "that they
didn't choose the Cup Race day! Do you remember,
two years ago, their giving a party for a black man on
the day of Julia Mingott's the dansant? Luckily this
time there's nothing else going on that I know of--for
of course some of us will have to go."
Mr. Welland sighed nervously. "`Some of us,' my
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