| 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: full of Henrys, and that the number of Hortenses is growing
larger and larger. I don't know if the four-room flats are to
blame, or whether it's just a natural development. But the
Henry-Hortense situation seems to be spreading to the
nine-room-and-three-baths apartments, too."
Hortense nodded a knowing head.
"I kind of thought so, from the way you were listening."
The two, standing there gazing at each other almost shyly,
suddenly began to laugh. The laugh was a safety-valve. Then,
quite as suddenly, both became serious. That seriousness had
been the under-current throughout.
Emma McChesney & Co. |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Hidden Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac: those deep, self-developed discouragements, whose cause, if we are to
believe the mathematicians of health, lies in a bad digestion, in the
wind, in the weather, in some swelling of the intestines, or else,
according to casuists, in the imperfections of our moral nature; the
fact being that the good man was simply worn out by the effort to
complete his mysterious picture. He was seated languidly in a large
oaken chair of vast dimensions covered with black leather; and without
changing his melancholy attitude he cast on Porbus the distant glance
of a man sunk in absolute dejection.
"Well, maitre," said Porbus, "was the distant ultra-marine, for which
you journeyed to Brussels, worthless? Are you unable to grind a new
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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 Glaucus/The Wonders of the Shore by Charles Kingsley: are. The larger is always open, taking in the water, which is at
once the animal's food and air, and which, flowing over the
delicate inner surface of the mantle, at once oxygenates its blood,
and fills its stomach with minute particles of decayed organized
matter. The smaller is shut. Wait a minute, and it will open
suddenly and discharge a jet of clear water, which has been robbed,
I suppose, of its oxygen and its organic matter. But, I suppose,
your eyes will be rather attracted by that same scarlet and orange
foot, which is being drawn in and thrust out to a length of nearly
four inches, striking with its point against any opposing object,
and sending the whole shell backwards with a jerk. The point, you
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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 Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad: I pushed him, still growling, against the rail.
"Hold on to it," I said roughly. I did not know
what to do with him. I left him in a hurry, to go
to Gambril, who had called faintly that he believed
there was some wind aloft. Indeed, my own ears
had caught a feeble flutter of wet canvas, high up
overhead, the jingle of a slack chain sheet. . . .
These were eerie, disturbing, alarming sounds in
the dead stillness of the air around me. All the
instances I had heard of topmasts being whipped
out of a ship while there was not wind enough on
The Shadow Line |
