| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Prince Otto by Robert Louis Stevenson: vanity was delicately tickled, and his mind returned and dwelt
approvingly over the details of his victory. 'I quelled them all,'
he thought.
When the more pressing matters had been dismissed, it was already
late, and Otto kept the Chancellor to dinner, and was entertained
with a leash of ancient histories and modern compliments. The
Chancellor's career had been based, from the first off-put, on
entire subserviency; he had crawled into honours and employments;
and his mind was prostitute. The instinct of the creature served
him well with Otto. First, he let fall a sneering word or two upon
the female intellect; thence he proceeded to a closer engagement;
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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 Voice of the City by O. Henry: Most of the diners were confirmed table d'hoters --
gastronomic adventuress, forever seeking the El Do-
rado of a good claret, and consistently coming to
grief in California.
Mr. Brunelli escorted Katy to a little table em-
bowered with shrubbery in tubs, and asked her to
excuse him for a while.
Katy sat, enchanted by a scene so brilliant to her.
The grand ladies, in splendid dresses and plumes and
sparkling rings; the fine gentlemen who laughed so
loudly, the cries of "Garsong! " and "We, mon-
The Voice of the City |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: curiosity was growing like the bean-stalk. I said persuasively
to my hostess: "I must really see your portrait, you know."
She glanced out almost timorously at the terrace where her
husband, lounging in a hooded chair, had lit a cigar and drawn
the Russian deerhound's head between his knees.
"Well, come while he's not looking," she said, with a laugh that
tried to hide her nervousness; and I followed her between the
marble Emperors of the hall, and up the wide stairs with terra-
cotta nymphs poised among flowers at each landing.
In the dimmest corner of her boudoir, amid a profusion of
delicate and distinguished objects, hung one of the familiar oval
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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 Young Forester by Zane Grey: walked like athletes I had seen. Surely I should find a friend in him, and
I lost no time in running down into the glade. He saw me as soon as I was
clear of the trees, and stood leaning on his rifle.
"Wal, dog-gone my buttons!" he ejaculated. "Who're you?"
I blurted out all about myself, at the same time taking stock of him. He
was not young, but I had never seen a young man so splendid. Hair, beard,
and skin were all of a dark gray. His eyes, too, were gray--the keenest and
clearest I had ever looked into. They shone with a kindly light, otherwise
I might have thought his face hard and stern. His shoulders were very wide,
his arms long, his hands enormous. His buckskin shirt attracted my
attention to his other clothes, which looked like leather overalls or heavy
The Young Forester |
