| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from To-morrow by Joseph Conrad: chair, an unshaded lamp, the yawning of an enor-
mous mouth in a big flat face encircled by a ragged
halo of hair--Miss Bessie's head and bust. The
shouting stopped; the blind ran down. He lost
himself in thinking how awkward it was. Father
mad; no getting into the house. No money to get
back; a hungry chum in London who would begin
to think he had been given the go-by. "Damn!"
he muttered. He could break the door in, cer-
tainly; but they would perhaps bundle him into
chokey for that without asking questions--no great
To-morrow |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Malbone: An Oldport Romance by Thomas Wentworth Higginson: busy wash of waters against every shore and islet of the bay.
The mist was thick around her, but she knew that above it hung
the sleepless stars, and the fancy came over her that perhaps
the whole vast interval, from ocean up to sky, might be densely
filled with the disembodied souls of her departed human
kindred, waiting to see how she would endure that path of grief
in which their steps had gone before. "It may be from this
influence," she vaguely mused within herself, "that the ocean
derives its endless song of sorrow. Perhaps we shall know the
meaning when we understand that of the stars, and of our own
sad lives."
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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 Beauty and The Beast by Bayard Taylor: gasped for breath--his face WAS before her! The features,
sharpened by despairing grief, which her memory recalled, had
almost anticipated the harder lines which fifteen years had made,
and which now, with a terrible shock and choking leap of the heart,
she recognized. Her senses faded, and she would have fallen
from her seat but for the support of the partition against
which she leaned. Fortunately, the women near her were too much
occupied with the narrative to notice her condition. Many of them
wept silently, with their handkerchiefs pressed over their mouths.
The first shock of death-like faintness passed away, and she clung
to the speaker's voice, as if its sound alone could give her
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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 The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan by Honore de Balzac: She arrived early, so as to pose on a sofa near the fire beside Madame
d'Espard, as she wished to be first seen: that is, in one of those
attitudes in which science is concealed beneath an exquisite
naturalness; a studied attitude, putting in relief the beautiful
serpentine outline which, starting from the foot, rises gracefully to
the hip, and continues with adorable curves to the shoulder,
presenting, in fact, a profile of the whole body. With a subtlety
which few women would have dreamed of, Diane, to the great amazement
of the marquise, had brought her son with her. After a moment's
reflection, Madame d'Espard pressed the princess's hand, with a look
of intelligence that seemed to say:--
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