| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart: Bassett too was listening, but he kept his fears to himself.
"Why did you do it?" he asked finally.
"I was drunk, and I hated him. He married a girl I was crazy about."
Bassett tried new tactics. He stressed the absurdity of surrendering
for a crime committed ten years before and forgotten.
"They won't convict you anyhow," he urged. "It was a quarrel, wasn't
it? I mean, you didn't deliberately shoot him?"
"I don't remember. We quarreled. Yes. I don't remember shooting him."
"What do you remember?"
Dick made an effort, although he was white to the lips.
"I saw him on the floor," he said slowly, and staggered a little.
The Breaking Point |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Silas Marner by George Eliot: frequent direction this particular Sunday afternoon. The first
wandering of her thought from the text, which she still attempted
dutifully to follow with her eyes and silent lips, was into an
imaginary enlargement of the defence she had set up for her husband
against Priscilla's implied blame. The vindication of the loved
object is the best balm affection can find for its wounds:--"A
man must have so much on his mind," is the belief by which a wife
often supports a cheerful face under rough answers and unfeeling
words. And Nancy's deepest wounds had all come from the perception
that the absence of children from their hearth was dwelt on in her
husband's mind as a privation to which he could not reconcile
Silas Marner |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Blue Flower by Henry van Dyke: thing. I guess you like my daughter Amanda pretty well. Eh?
I've watched you, young man. I've had my eye on you! Now, of
course, I can't say much about it--never can be sure of these
kind of things, you know--but if you and she--"
The voice went on rolling out words complacently. But
something strange was working in Luke's blood,
and other voices were sounding faintly in his ears. He heard
the lisping of the leaves on the little poplar-trees, the
whistle of the black duck's wings as he circled in the air,
the distant drumming of the grouse on his log, the rumble of
the water-fall in the River of Rocks. The spray cooled his
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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 Lock and Key Library by Julian Hawthorne, Ed.: exclaiming feebly, "They are robbing me,--robbing me in my last
moments,--robbing a dying man. John, won't you assist me,--I shall
die a beggar; they are taking my last shirt,--I shall die a
beggar."--And the miser died.
. . . . .
A few days after the funeral, the will was opened before proper
witnesses, and John was found to be left sole heir to his uncle's
property, which, though originally moderate, had, by his grasping
habits, and parsimonious life, become very considerable.
As the attorney who read the will concluded, he added, "There are
some words here, at the corner of the parchment, which do not
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