| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Emma McChesney & Co. by Edna Ferber: think of the brain she'll have," Buck reminded her excitedly.
"Great Scott! With a grandmother who has made the T. A. Buck
Featherloom Petticoat a household word, and a mother who was the
cleverest woman advertising copy-writer in New York, this young
lady ought to be a composite Hetty Green, Madame de Stael,
Hypatia, and Emma McChesney Buck. She'll be a lady wizard of
finance or a----"
"She'll be nothing of the kind," Emma disputed calmly. "That
child will be a throwback. The third generation generally is.
With a militant mother and a grandmother such as that child has,
she'll just naturally be a clinging vine. She'll be a reversion
Emma McChesney & Co. |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Touchstone by Edith Wharton: Her letters, from London, continued to come with the same tender
punctuality; but the altered conditions of her life, the vistas of
new relationships disclosed by every phrase, made her
communications as impersonal as a piece of journalism. It was as
though the state, the world, indeed, had taken her off his hands,
assuming the maintenance of a temperament that had long exhausted
his slender store of reciprocity.
In the retrospective light shed by the letters he was blinded to
their specific meaning. He was not a man who concerned himself
with literature, and they had been to him, at first, simply the
extension of her brilliant talk, later the dreaded vehicle of a
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Richard III by William Shakespeare: ARCHBISHOP. [To the QUEEN] My gracious lady, go.
And thither bear your treasure and your goods.
For my part, I'll resign unto your Grace
The seal I keep; and so betide to me
As well I tender you and all of yours!
Go, I'll conduct you to the sanctuary. Exeunt
<
Richard III |
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 Road to Oz by L. Frank Baum: different directions; Dorothy pointed to one, and said:
"That's it, Shaggy Man."
"I'm much obliged, miss," he said, and started along another road.
"Not that one!" she cried; "you're going wrong."
He stopped.
"I thought you said that other was the road to Butterfield," said he,
running his fingers through his shaggy whiskers in a puzzled way.
"So it is."
"But I don't want to go to Butterfield, miss."
"You don't?"
"Of course not. I wanted you to show me the road, so I shouldn't go
The Road to Oz |
