| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Foolish Virgin by Thomas Dixon: Jim seized the jug and poured again.
"Once more. Come, I've another toast for you.
You'll drink this one I know."
He lifted his cup and rose a little unsteadily.
Nance stood with uplifted cup watching him.
"As the poet sings," he began with a bow to the old
woman:
"France has her lily, England the rose,
Everybody knows where the shamrock grows--
Scotland has her thistle flowerin' on the hill,
But the American Emblem--is a One Dollar Bill!"
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: thin shoulders would develop later. Their throats, long veiled,
delighted the eye when their husbands requested them to wear low
dresses to a ball, on which occasion they both felt a pleasing shame,
which made them first blush behind closed doors, and afterwards,
through a whole evening in company.
On the occasion when this scene opens, and the eldest, Angelique, was
weeping, while the younger, Eugenie, was consoling her, their hands
and arms were white as milk. Each had nursed a child,--one a boy, the
other a daughter. Eugenie, as a girl, was thought very giddy by her
mother, who had therefore treated her with especial watchfulness and
severity. In the eyes of that much-feared mother, Angelique, noble and
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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 Hamlet by William Shakespeare: Hor. I warrant you it will
Ham. If it assume my noble Fathers person,
Ile speake to it, though Hell it selfe should gape
And bid me hold my peace. I pray you all,
If you haue hitherto conceald this sight;
Let it bee treble in your silence still:
And whatsoeuer els shall hap to night,
Giue it an vnderstanding but no tongue;
I will requite your loues; so fare ye well:
Vpon the Platforme twixt eleuen and twelue,
Ile visit you
Hamlet |
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 Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf: his mind seemed once more to expand, and become natural.
But when he had stood thus for a time a noise in the house roused him;
he turned instinctively and went into the drawing-room. The
sight of the lamp-lit room brought back so abruptly all that he
had forgotten that he stood for a moment unable to move.
He remembered everything, the hour, the minute even, what point they
had reached, and what was to come. He cursed himself for making
believe for a minute that things were different from what they are.
The night was now harder to face than ever.
Unable to stay in the empty drawing-room, he wandered out and sat
on the stairs half-way up to Rachel's room. He longed for some
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