| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart: young people refuse to profit by the experience of their elders,
and sometimes the elders are the ones to suffer.
I was much used up the day after the fire, and Gertrude insisted
on my going out. The machine was temporarily out of commission,
and the carriage horses had been sent to a farm for the summer.
Gertrude finally got a trap from the Casanova liveryman, and we
went out. Just as we turned from the drive into the road we
passed a woman. She had put down a small valise, and stood
inspecting the house and grounds minutely. I should
hardly have noticed her, had it not been for the fact that she
had been horribly disfigured by smallpox.
The Circular Staircase |
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: money had come with such infernal opportuneness that he could not
help welcoming it. Before long, too, there would be more; he knew
the book was still selling far beyond the publisher's previsions.
He put the check in his pocket and left the room without looking
at his wife.
On the way to his office the habitual reaction set in. The money
he had received was the first tangible reminder that he was living
on the sale of his self-esteem. The thought of material benefit
had been overshadowed by his sense of the intrinsic baseness of
making the letters known; now he saw what an element of sordidness
it added to the situation and how the fact that he needed the
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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 Another Study of Woman by Honore de Balzac: 'Yes, that is what I have been wondering.'--'Well, what will you do?'
--'I asked myself that the day after my cold.'--'And----?' she asked
with eager anxiety.--'And I have made advances to the little lady to
whom I was supposed to be attached.'
"Charlotte started up from the sofa like a frightened doe, trembling
like a leaf, gave me one of those looks in which women forgo all their
dignity, all their modesty, their refinement, and even their grace,
the sparkling glitter of a hunted viper's eye when driven into a
corner, and said, 'And I have loved this man! I have struggled! I
have----' On this last thought, which I leave you to guess, she made
the most impressive pause I ever heard.--'Good God!' she cried, 'how
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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 Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Bronte Sisters: 'Am I then a stranger?' said he in a sorrowful tone. 'I am your
nearest neighbour, your son's godfather, and your husband's friend;
may I not be yours also?'
'Intimate acquaintance must precede real friendship; I know but
little of you, Mr. Hargrave, except from report.'
'Have you then forgotten the six or seven weeks I spent under your
roof last autumn? I have not forgotten them. And I know enough of
you, Mrs. Huntingdon, to think that your husband is the most
enviable man in the world, and I should be the next if you would
deem me worthy of your friendship.'
'If you knew more of me, you would not think it, or if you did you
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall |
