| 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: hand. He should have known better than to choose carbolic, being
a druggist, but all men are a little mad at such times. He lay
down at the edge of the thin little bed that was little more than
a pallet, and he turned his face toward the bare spot that could
just be seen in the gathering gloom. And when he raised the bottle
to his lips the old-time sweetness of his smile illumined his face.
Where the car turns at Eighteenth Street there is a big,
glaring billboard poster, showing a group of stalwart young men in
white ducks lolling on shores, of tropical splendor, with palms
waving overhead, and a glimpse of blue sea in the distance. The
wording beneath it runs something like this:
Buttered Side Down |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Extracts From Adam's Diary by Mark Twain: Sunday
Pulled through. This day is getting to be more and more trying.
It was selected and set apart last November as a day of rest. I
already had six of them per week, before. This morning found the
new creature trying to clod apples out of that forbidden tree.
Monday
The new creature says its name is Eve. That is all right, I have
no objections. Says it is to call it by when I want it to come.
I said it was superfluous, then. The word evidently raised me in
its respect; and indeed it is a large, good word, and will bear
repetition. It says it is not an It, it is a She. This is probably
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Island Nights' Entertainments by Robert Louis Stevenson: her fine tapa and fine scents, and her red flowers and seeds, that
were quite as bright as jewels, only larger - it came over me she
was a kind of countess really, dressed to hear great singers at a
concert, and no even mate for a poor trader like myself.
She was the first in the house; and while I was still without I saw
a match flash and the lamplight kindle in the windows. The station
was a wonderful fine place, coral built, with quite a wide
verandah, and the main room high and wide. My chests and cases had
been piled in, and made rather of a mess; and there, in the thick
of the confusion, stood Uma by the table, awaiting me. Her shadow
went all the way up behind her into the hollow of the iron roof;
|
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 In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield: England in the morning I used to eat."
He turned up his eyes and his moustache, wiping the soup drippings from his
coat and waistcoat.
"Do they really eat so much?" asked Fraulein Stiegelauer. "Soup and
baker's bread and pig's flesh, and tea and coffee and stewed fruit, and
honey and eggs, and cold fish and kidneys, and hot fish and liver? All the
ladies eat, too, especially the ladies."
"Certainly. I myself have noticed it, when I was living in a hotel in
Leicester Square," cried the Herr Rat. "It was a good hotel, but they
could not make tea--now--"
"Ah, that's one thing I CAN do," said I, laughing brightly. "I can make
|
