| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Mansion by Henry van Dyke: He was solid, correct, and justly successful.
His minor tastes, of course, had been carefully kept up to date.
At the proper time, pictures of the Barbizon masters, old English
plate and portraits, bronzes by Barye and marbles by Rodin,
Persian carpets
and Chinese porcelains, had been introduced to the mansion.
It contained a Louis Quinze reception-room, an Empire
drawing-room,
a Jacobean dining-room, and various apartments dimly reminiscent
of
the styles of furniture affected by deceased monarchs. That the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Complete Poems of Longfellow by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Growing fainter and fainter, and dying away in the distance.
Then he arose from his seat, and looked forth into the darkness,
Felt the cool air blow on his cheek, that was hot with the
insult,
Lifted his eyes to the heavens, and, folding his hands as in
childhood,
Prayed in the silence of night to the Father who seeth in secret.
Meanwhile the choleric Captain strode wrathful away to the
council,
Found it already assembled, impatiently waiting his coming;
Men in the middle of life, austere and grave in deportment,
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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 Witch, et. al by Anton Chekhov: judging by the dull patience with which he struggled with the
hopeless autumn mud, he might have been a fanatical monk,
wandering from one Russian monastery to another, continually
seeking "a peaceful life, free from sin," and not finding it. . .
.
The travellers had been a long while on their way, but they
seemed to be always on the same small patch of ground. In front
of them there stretched thirty feet of muddy black-brown mud,
behind them the same, and wherever one looked further, an
impenetrable wall of white fog. They went on and on, but the
ground remained the same, the wall was no nearer, and the patch
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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 Kenilworth by Walter Scott: heretic as a roasted ox."
"Ay, but, kinsman, that was in Mary's time," replied the
landlord, "when Tony's father was reeve here to the Abbot of
Abingdon. But since that, Tony married a pure precisian, and is
as good a Protestant, I warrant you, as the best."
"And looks grave, and holds his head high, and scorns his old
companions," said the mercer.
"Then he hath prospered, I warrant him," said Lambourne; "for
ever when a man hath got nobles of his own, he keeps out of the
way of those whose exchequers lie in other men's purchase."
"Prospered, quotha!" said the mercer; "why, you remember Cumnor
Kenilworth |
