| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Confidence by Henry James: lodging with her almost in silence. The little winding
streets were still and empty; there was no sound but the
chatter and laughter of Blanche and her attendant swain.
Angela said nothing.
This incident presented itself at first to Bernard's mind
as a sort of declaration of war. The girl had guessed
that she was to be made a subject of speculative scrutiny.
The idea was not agreeable to her independent spirit, and she
placed herself boldly on the defensive. She took her stand
upon her right to defeat his purpose by every possible means--
to perplex, elude, deceive him--in plain English, to make a fool of him.
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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 Gift of the Magi by O. Henry: and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they
are wisest. They are the magi.
End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of THE GIFT OF THE MAGI.
The Gift of the Magi |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Princess by Alfred Tennyson: No little lily-handed Baronet he,
A great broad-shouldered genial Englishman,
A lord of fat prize-oxen and of sheep,
A raiser of huge melons and of pine,
A patron of some thirty charities,
A pamphleteer on guano and on grain,
A quarter-sessions chairman, abler none;
Fair-haired and redder than a windy morn;
Now shaking hands with him, now him, of those
That stood the nearest--now addressed to speech--
Who spoke few words and pithy, such as closed
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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 A Prince of Bohemia by Honore de Balzac: sternly; still, at the same time that 'cornet of sugar-plums' may
serve to warn young girls of the perils of lingering where fancies,
more charming than chastened, come thickly from the first; on the rosy
flowery unguarded slopes, where trespasses ripen into errors full of
equivocal effervescence, into too palpitating issues. The anecdote
puts La Palferine's genius before you in all its vivacity and
completeness. He realizes Pascal's /entre-deux/, he comprehends the
whole scale between tenderness and pitilessness, and, like
Epaminondas, he is equally great in extremes. And not merely so, his
epigram stamps the epoch; the /accoucheur/ is a modern innovation. All
the refinements of modern civilization are summed up in the phrase. It
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