| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg by Mark Twain: not--maybe there is still time." She rose and stood thinking,
nervously clasping and unclasping her hands. A slight shudder shook
her frame, and she said, out of a dry throat, "God forgive me--it's
awful to think such things--but . . . Lord, how we are made--how
strangely we are made!"
She turned the light low, and slipped stealthily over and knelt down
by the sack and felt of its ridgy sides with her hands, and fondled
them lovingly; and there was a gloating light in her poor old eyes.
She fell into fits of absence; and came half out of them at times to
mutter "If we had only waited!--oh, if we had only waited a little,
and not been in such a hurry!"
The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from La Grenadiere by Honore de Balzac: instinct, neither selfishness nor reason, perhaps the first innocent
beginnings of sentiment teaches children to know whether or not they
are the first and sole thought, to find out those who love to think of
them and for them. If you really love children, the dear little ones,
with open hearts and unerring sense of justice, are marvelously ready
to respond to love. Their love knows passion and jealousy and the most
gracious delicacy of feeling; they find the tenderest words of
expression; they trust you--put an entire belief in you. Perhaps there
are no undutiful children without undutiful mothers, for a child's
affection is always in proportion to the affection that it receives--
in early care, in the first words that it hears, in the response of
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Bunner Sisters by Edith Wharton: Already, in the watches of the night, Ann Eliza had been
tormented by that same question--who was to pay the doctor?--and a
few days before she had temporarily silenced it by borrowing twenty
dollars of Miss Mellins. The transaction had cost her one of the
bitterest struggles of her life. She had never borrowed a penny of
any one before, and the possibility of having to do so had always
been classed in her mind among those shameful extremities to which
Providence does not let decent people come. But nowadays she no
longer believed in the personal supervision of Providence; and had
she been compelled to steal the money instead of borrowing it, she
would have felt that her conscience was the only tribunal before
|
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 Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: door in time? What if the Heliumite should have already
emerged and he should run upon him in the passageway?
Astok felt a cold chill run up his spine. He had
no stomach to face that uncanny blade.
He was almost at the door. Around the next turn of the
corridor it stood. No, they had not left the apartment.
Evidently Vas Kor was still holding the Heliumite!
Astok could scarce repress a grin at the clever manner
in which he had outwitted the noble and disposed of
him at the same time. And then he rounded the turn and
came face to face with an auburn-haired, white giant.
Thuvia, Maid of Mars |
