| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart: "And why did you want to see me again? You can't still care for me.
You know the story. You know I was here and didn't see you. You've
seen Leslie Ward. You know my past. What you don't know - "
He looked down into her eyes. "A little work, a little sleep, a
little love," he repeated. "What did you mean by that?"
"Just that," she said simply. "Only not a little love, Dick. Maybe
you don't want me now. I don't know. I have suffered so much that
I'm not sure of anything."
"Want you !" he said. "More than anything on this earth."
Bassett was at his desk in the office. It was late, and the night
editor, seeing him reading the early edition, his feet on his desk,
The Breaking Point |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, etc. by Oscar Wilde: So on the tip of his subduing tongue,
All kind of arguments and questions deep,
All replication prompt and reason strong,
For his advantage still did wake and sleep,
To make the weeper laugh, the laugher weep.
He had the dialect and the different skill,
Catching all passions in his craft of will.
Once I thought that I had really found Willie Hughes in Elizabethan
literature. In a wonderfully graphic account of the last days of
the great Earl of Essex, his chaplain, Thomas Knell, tells us that
the night before the Earl died, 'he called William Hewes, which was
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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 What is Man? by Mark Twain: To write the word "through," the pen has to make twenty-one strokes.
To write the word "thru," then pen has to make twelve strokes--
a good saving.
To write that same word with the phonographic alphabet, the
pen has to make only THREE strokes.
To write the word "laugh," the pen has to make FOURTEEN
strokes.
To write "laff," the pen has to make the SAME NUMBER of
strokes--no labor is saved to the penman.
To write the same word with the phonographic alphabet, the
pen has to make only THREE strokes.
What is Man? |
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 Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: Such was the story of the young man who, about the middle of the month
of April, 1815, was walking indolently up the broad avenue of the
Tuileries, after the fashion of all those animals who, knowing their
strength, pass along in majesty and peace. Middle-class matrons turned
back naively to look at him again; other women, without turning round,
waited for him to pass again, and engraved him in their minds that
they might remember in due season that fragrant face, which would not
have disadorned the body of the fairest among themselves.
"What are you doing here on Sunday?" said the Marquis de Ronquerolles
to Henri, as he passed.
"There's a fish in the net," answered the young man.
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
