| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Edition of The Ambassadors by Henry James: only as I HAD to speak. There's only one way--isn't there?--about
such things. However," he smiled with a final philosophy, "I see
it's all right."
Strether met his eyes with a sense of multiplying thoughts. What
was it that made him at present, late at night and after journeys,
so renewedly, so substantially young? Strether saw in a moment
what it was--it was that he was younger again than Madame de Vionnet.
He himself said immediately none of the things that he was thinking;
he said something quite different. "You HAVE really been to a distance?"
"I've been to England." Chad spoke cheerfully and promptly, but gave
no further account of it than to say: "One must sometimes get off."
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Letters of Two Brides by Honore de Balzac: that I felt shaken to bits when I reached the lodge gate, though my
mental agony was such at the time that it might well have dulled all
consciousness of bodily pain. Arrived at the gate, Gaston said
nothing; he rang the bell and waited without a word. I was more dead
than alive. I might be mistaken or I might not, but in neither case
was it fitting for Armande-Louise-Marie de Chaulieu to play the spy. I
had sunk to the level of the gutter, by the side of courtesans, opera-
dancers, mere creatures of instinct; even the vulgar shop-girl or
humble seamstress might look down on me.
What a moment! At last the door opened; he handed his horse to the
groom, and I also dismounted, but into his arms, which were stretched
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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 The Marvelous Land of Oz by L. Frank Baum: "I beg your Majesty's pardon," returned the Pumpkinhead; "but I do not
understand you."
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"What don't you understand?" asked the Scarecrow.
"Why, I don't understand your language. You see, I came from the Country of
the Gillikins, so that I am a foreigner."
"Ah, to be sure!" exclaimed the Scarecrow. "I myself speak the language of
the Munchkins, which is also the language of the Emerald City. But you, I
suppose, speak the language of the Pumpkinheads?"
"Exactly so, your Majesty" replied the other, bowing; "so it will be
impossible for us to understand one another."
The Marvelous Land of 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 The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain: in his speculations and left her to her own devices.
In that same month of February, Dawson's Landing gained a new citizen.
This was Mr. David Wilson, a young fellow of Scotch parentage.
He had wandered to this remote region from his birthplace in the interior
of the State of New York, to seek his fortune. He was twenty-five years old,
college bred, and had finished a post-college course in an Eastern
law school a couple of years before.
He was a homely, freckled, sandy-haired young fellow, with an intelligent
blue eye that had frankness and comradeship in it and a covert twinkle
of a pleasant sort. But for an unfortunate remark of his, he would no
doubt have entered at once upon a successful career at Dawson's Landing.
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