| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from O Pioneers! by Willa Cather: offices.
Lou's wife, formerly Annie Lee, has grown to
look curiously like her husband. Her face has
become longer, sharper, more aggressive. She
wears her yellow hair in a high pompadour,
and is bedecked with rings and chains and
"beauty pins." Her tight, high-heeled shoes
give her an awkward walk, and she is always
more or less preoccupied with her clothes. As
she sat at the table, she kept telling her young-
O Pioneers! |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Falk by Joseph Conrad: cally with collapsible flourishes; and there were long
white garments that, taking the wind fairly
through their neck openings edged with lace, be-
came for a moment violently distended as by the
passage of obese and invisible bodies. On these days
you could make out that ship at a great distance
by the multi-coloured grotesque riot going on abaft
her mizzen mast.
She had her berth just ahead of me, and her
name was Diana,--Diana not of Ephesus but of
Bremen. This was proclaimed in white letters a
Falk |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Droll Stories, V. 1 by Honore de Balzac: him again! . . . he whose words were so sweet, whose manners were so
graceful, that lovely head that had so often rested on my knees, will
now be bruised . . . What! Can I not throw to my husband an empty and
valueless head in place of the one full of charms and worth . . . a
rank head for a sweet-smelling one; a hated head for a head of love."
"Ah, Madame!" cried the washerwoman, "suppose we dress up in the
garments of a nobleman, the steward's son who is mad for me, and
wearies me much, and having thus accoutered him, we push him out
through the postern.
Thereupon the two women looked at each other with assassinating eyes.
"This marplot," said she, "once slain, all those soldiers will fly
Droll Stories, V. 1 |
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 Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: covered with a whitish down, projected like an awning, were strongly
circled by a pale-blue band, the skin being white and shining at the
spring of the nose,--a sign which almost always denotes excessive
enthusiasm. Christophe was of the people,--the people who devote
themselves, who fight for their devotions, who let themselves be
inveigled and betrayed; intelligent enough to comprehend and serve an
idea, too upright to turn it to his own account, too noble to sell
himself.
Contrasting with this son of Lecamus, Chaudieu, the ardent minister,
with brown hair thinned by vigils, a yellow skin, an eloquent mouth, a
militant brow, with flaming brown eyes, and a short and prominent
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