| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from O Pioneers! by Willa Cather: through. He dropped a handful into her lap.
"Do you like Mr. Linstrum?" Marie asked
suddenly.
"Yes. Don't you?"
"Oh, ever so much; only he seems kind of
staid and school-teachery. But, of course, he is
older than Frank, even. I'm sure I don't want
to live to be more than thirty, do you? Do you
O Pioneers! |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Oscar Wilde Miscellaneous by Oscar Wilde: and accompanied by fescennine corybantics. Except in 'name and
borrowed notoriety' the music-hall sensation has no relation
whatever to the drama which so profoundly moved the whole of Europe
and the greatest living musician. The adjectives of contumely are
easily transmuted into epithets of adulation, when a prominent
ecclesiastic succumbs, like King Herod, to the fascination of a
dancer.
It is not usually known in England that a young French naval
officer, unaware that Dr. Strauss was composing an opera on the
theme of Salome, wrote another music drama to accompany Wilde's
text. The exclusive musical rights having been already secured by
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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 Mistress Wilding by Rafael Sabatini: She looked at him in anger almost at what seemed a callousness. "Would
he believe me, think you?"
"Belike he would not," said Mr. Wilding. "You can but try."
"If I told them it was addressed to you," she said, eyeing him sternly,
"does it not occur to you that they would send for you to question you,
and that if they did so, as you are a gentleman you could not lie
away my brother's life."
"Why, yes," said he quite calmly, "it does occur to me. But does it
not occur to you that by the time they came here they would find me
gone?" He laughed at her dismay. "I thank you, madam, for this
warning," he added. "I think I'll bid them saddle for me without delay.
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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 The Land of Footprints by Stewart Edward White: decorum. After four or five had thus spoken, Horne, without
altering his lounging attitude, spoke twenty or thirty words,
rapped again on the table with his rawhide whip, and immediately
came over to us.
"Now," said he cheerfully, "we'll have a game of golf."
That was amusing, but not astonishing. Most of us have at one
time or another laid out a scratch hole or so somewhere in the
vacant lot. We returned to the house, Horne produced a
sufficiency of clubs, and we sallied forth. Then came the surprise
of our life! We played eighteen holes-eighteen, mind you-over
an excellently laid-out and kept-up course! The fair greens were
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