| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Buttered Side Down by Edna Ferber: With a jerk she brought her straying fingers away from her
hair, and her wandering eyes away from the sunshine, and her
runaway thoughts back to the typewritten page. For three minutes
the snap of the little disks crackled through the stillness of the
tiny apartment. Then, suddenly, as though succumbing to an
irresistible force, Mary Louise rose, walked across the room (a
matter of six steps), removing hairpins as she went, and shoved
aside the screen which hid the stationary wash-bowl by day.
Mary Louise turned on a faucet and held her finger under it,
while an agonized expression of doubt and suspense overspread her
features. Slowly the look of suspense gave way to a smile of
Buttered Side Down |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: "Oh, hang waiting!" Ned broke in. "Life's too short for a ghost
who can only be enjoyed in retrospect. Can't we do better than
that, Mary?"
But it turned out that in the event they were not destined to,
for within three months of their conversation with Mrs. Stair
they were established at Lyng, and the life they had yearned for
to the point of planning it out in all its daily details had
actually begun for them.
It was to sit, in the thick December dusk, by just such a wide-
hooded fireplace, under just such black oak rafters, with the
sense that beyond the mullioned panes the downs were darkening to
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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 Georgics by Virgil: May not be dulled by surfeiting, nor choke
The sluggish furrows, but eagerly absorb
Their fill of love, and deeply entertain.
To care of sire the mother's care succeeds.
When great with young they wander nigh their time,
Let no man suffer them to drag the yoke
In heavy wains, nor leap across the way,
Nor scour the meads, nor swim the rushing flood.
In lonely lawns they feed them, by the course
Of brimming streams, where moss is, and the banks
With grass are greenest, where are sheltering caves,
Georgics |
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 Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: his soul was so great that, though the weather was extremely cold,
it put him into a most violent heat; so I said a word or two, that
I would leave him to consider of it, and wait on him again, and
then I withdrew to my own apartment.
About two hours after I heard somebody at or near the door of my
room, and I was going to open the door, but he had opened it and
come in. "My dear friend," says he, "you had almost overset me,
but I am recovered. Do not take it ill that I do not close with
your offer. I assure you it is not for want of sense of the
kindness of it in you; and I came to make the most sincere
acknowledgment of it to you; but I hope I have got the victory over
Robinson Crusoe |
