| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from One Basket by Edna Ferber: you. I do. I remember I used to feel sorry for you. I used to
say `Poor Sophy.' But you unmarried ones are the happiest, after
all. It's the married woman who drinks the cup to the last,
bitter drop. There you sit, Sophy, fifty years old, and life
hasn't even touched you. You don't know how cruel life can be to
a mother."
Suddenly, "There!" said Adele. The other three in the room
stood up and faced the door. The sound of a motor stopping
outside. Daniel Oakley's hearty voice: "Well, it only took us
five minutes from the station. Pretty good."
Footsteps down the hall. Marian King stood in the doorway. They
One Basket |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Research Magnificent by H. G. Wells: and then the idea came to him that it is not pride that makes
Christophes but humility.
There is in the medley of man's composition, deeper far than his
superficial working delusion that he is a separated self-seeking
individual, an instinct for cooperation and obedience. Every
natural sane man wants, though he may want it unwittingly, kingly
guidance, a definite direction for his own partial life. At the
bottom of his heart he feels, even if he does not know it
definitely, that his life is partial. He is driven to join himself
on. He obeys decision and the appearance of strength as a horse
obeys its rider's voice. One thinks of the pride, the uncontrolled
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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 Study of a Woman by Honore de Balzac: one another in France since the Charter. A woman with principles could
not have fallen into better hands. It is certainly a great thing for a
virtuous woman to have married a man incapable of follies.
Occasionally some fops have been sufficiently impertinent to press the
hand of the marquise while dancing with her. They gained nothing in
return but contemptuous glances; all were made to feel the shock of
that insulting indifference which, like a spring frost, destroys the
germs of flattering hopes. Beaux, wits, and fops, men whose sentiments
are fed by sucking their canes, those of a great name, or a great
fame, those of the highest or the lowest rank in her own world, they
all blanch before her. She has conquered the right to converse as long
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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 Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare: But that thou ouer heard'st ere I was ware
My true Loues passion, therefore pardon me,
And not impute this yeelding to light Loue,
Which the darke night hath so discouered
Rom. Lady, by yonder Moone I vow,
That tips with siluer all these Fruite tree tops
Iul. O sweare not by the Moone, th' inconstant Moone,
That monethly changes in her circled Orbe,
Least that thy Loue proue likewise variable
Rom. What shall I sweare by?
Iul. Do not sweare at all:
Romeo and Juliet |
