| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Moran of the Lady Letty by Frank Norris: The liquor that he had drunk before starting began suddenly to
affect him, yet he knew that his head was yet clear. He could not
bring himself to run away before them all, but he would have given
much to have discovered a good reason for postponing the fight--if
fight there was to be.
He remembered the cocked revolver in his hand, and, suddenly
raising it, fired point-blank at his man, not fifteen feet away.
The hammer snapped on the nipple, but the cartridge did not
explode. Wilbur turned to the Chinaman next him in line,
exclaiming excitedly:
"Here, say, have you got a knife--something I can fight with? This
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Ferragus by Honore de Balzac: street-sweepers, beggars, occasionally insolent countesses, admired
actresses, applauded singers; she has even given, in the olden time,
two quasi-queens to the monarchy. Who can grasp such a Proteus? She is
all woman, less than woman, more than woman. From this vast portrait
the painter of manners and morals can take but a feature here and
there; the /ensemble/ is infinite.
She was a grisette of Paris; a grisette in all her glory; a grisette
in a hackney-coach,--happy, young, handsome, fresh, but a grisette; a
grisette with claws, scissors, impudent as a Spanish woman, snarling
as a prudish English woman proclaiming her conjugal rights, coquettish
as a great lady, though more frank, and ready for everything; a
Ferragus |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Rinkitink In Oz by L. Frank Baum: with his knuckles because their vision was blurred with
too much sleep.
"Don't ask me," said the goat, chewing with much
satisfaction a cud of sweet grasses.
"Bilbil," said the King, squatting down beside the
goat and resting his fat chin upon his hands and his
elbows on his knees, "allow me to confide to you the
fact that I am bored, and need amusement. My good
friend Kitticut has been kidnapped by the barbarians
and taken from me, so there is no one to converse with
me intelligently. I am the King and you are the goat.
Rinkitink In Oz |
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 Pivot of Civilization by Margaret Sanger: women work at night in the mills, sometimes up to the very hour of
delivery. ``It's queer,'' exclaimed a woman supervisor of one of the
Rhode Island mills, ``but some women, both on the day and the night
shift, will stick to their work right up to the last minute, and will
use every means to deceive you about their condition. I go around and
talk to them, but make little impression. We have had several narrow
escapes....A Polish mother with five children had worked in a mill by
day or by night, ever since her marriage, stopping only to have her
babies. One little girl had died several years ago, and the youngest
child, says Mrs. Kelley, did not look promising. It had none of the
charm of babyhood; its body and clothing were filthy; and its lower
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