| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Mother by Owen Wister: it in the evening."
"'I wonder what she's buying now?' said Ethel, vindictively."
"'Well, I can't help feeling sorry for her,' I answered, with as much of
a smile as I could produce."
"'That is so unnecessary, Richard! She can easily afford to gratify her
gambling instinct.'"
"'There you go, Ethel, inventing millions for her just as you invented
grandchildren.'"
"'Not at all. Unless she constantly had money lying idle, she could not
take these continual plunges. She is an old woman with few expenses, and
she lives well within her income. You would hear of her entertaining if
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Glaucus/The Wonders of the Shore by Charles Kingsley: it were, abortive; and gradually, in species still farther removed,
dies out altogether; placed there, it would seem, at first sight,
merely to keep up the family likeness. I am half jesting; that
cannot be the only reason, perhaps not the reason at all; but the
fact is one of the most curious, and notorious also, in comparative
anatomy.
Look, again, at those sea-slugs. One, some three inches long, of a
bright lemon-yellow, clouded with purple; another of a dingy grey;
(16) another exquisite little creature of a pearly French White,
(17) furred all over the back with what seem arms, but are really
gills, of ringed white and grey and black. Put that yellow one
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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 Dracula by Bram Stoker: There are great, frowning precipices and much falling water,
and Nature seem to have held sometime her carnival.
Madam Mina still sleep and sleep. And though I did have hunger
and appeased it, I could not waken her, even for food.
I began to fear that the fatal spell of the place was
upon her, tainted as she is with that Vampire baptism.
"Well," said I to myself, "if it be that she sleep all
the day, it shall also be that I do not sleep at night."
As we travel on the rough road, for a road of an ancient
and imperfect kind there was, I held down my head and slept.
Again I waked with a sense of guilt and of time passed,
Dracula |
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 Copy-Cat & Other Stories by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: attacks before, too, Janet. You remember the time
you ate strawberry shortcake and ice-cream?"
Janet nodded meekly. Then she coughed again.
"Ow, this dust!" gasped she. "For goodness' sake,
John, get me home where I can get some water and
take off these dusty clothes or I shall choke to
death."
"How does your stomach feel?" inquired Dr.
Trumbull.
"Stomach is all right now, but I am just choking
to death with the dust." Janet turned sharply tow-
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