| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Roads of Destiny by O. Henry: but to leave the crumbly red brick house, and be off with his abhorred
millions.
On his way back, Pilkins walked through Madison Square. The hour hand
of the clock hung about eight; the air was stingingly cool, but not at
the freezing point. The dim little square seemed like a great, cold,
unroofed room, with its four walls of houses, spangled with thousands
of insufficient lights. Only a few loiterers were huddled here and
there on the benches.
But suddenly Pilkins came upon a youth sitting brave and, as if
conflicting with summer sultriness, coatless, his white shirt-sleeves
conspicuous in the light from the globe of an electric. Close to his
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: physical disfigurement. No man knew better than he that a look, a
word, suffices to blot out years of happiness, and is the more cruel
because it contrasts with the unfailing tenderness of the past: our
nature leads us to suffer more from one discord in our happiness than
pleasure coming in the midst of trouble can bring us joy.
Presently Balthazar appeared to waken; he looked quickly about him,
and said,--
"Vespers? Ah, yes! the children are at vespers."
He made a few steps forward, and looked into the garden, where
magnificent tulips were growing on all sides; then he suddenly stopped
short as if brought up against a wall, and cried out,--
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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 Where There's A Will by Mary Roberts Rinehart: for you both. But while I'm out of the ring now for good--I
don't mind saying to you what I said to Pierce, that the only
thing that gets into training here, as far as I can see, is a
fellow's pocketbook."
We went back to the house and I straightened the news stand,
Amanda King having taken a violent toothache as a result of the
excitement. The Jenningses were packing to go, and Miss Summers
had got a bottle of peroxide and shut herself in her room. At
six o'clock Tillie beckoned to me from the door of the officers'
dining-room and said she'd put the basket in the snow by the
grape arbor. I got ready, with a heavy heart, to take it out. I
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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 Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne: little metropolis of the colony.
On this public holiday, as on all other occasions for seven years
past, Hester was clad in a garment of coarse gray cloth. Not
more by its hue than by some indescribable peculiarity in its
fashion, it had the effect of making her fade personally out of
sight and outline; while again the scarlet letter brought her
back from this twilight indistinctness, and revealed her under
the moral aspect of its own illumination. Her face, so long
familiar to the townspeople, showed the marble quietude which
they were accustomed to behold there. It was like a mask; or,
The Scarlet Letter |
