| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle: the bench before the door, quaffing ale, or lay beneath the shade
of the broad-spreading oak trees, talking and jesting and laughing.
All around stood the horses of the band, with a great noise
of stamping feet and a great switching of tails. To this inn came
the King's rangers, driving the widow's three sons before them.
The hands of the three youths were tied tightly behind their backs,
and a cord from neck to neck fastened them all together.
So they were marched to the room where the Sheriff sat at meat,
and stood trembling before him as he scowled sternly upon them.
"So," quoth he, in a great, loud, angry voice, "ye have been poaching upon
the King's deer, have you? Now I will make short work of you this day,
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from House of Mirth by Edith Wharton: this into the gesture of disgust with which he tore the paper in
two, and turned to walk quickly homeward.
When Lily woke on the morning after her translation to the
Emporium Hotel, her first feeling was one of purely physical
satisfaction. The force of contrast gave an added keenness to the
luxury of lying once more in a soft-pillowed bed, and looking
across a spacious sunlit room at a breakfast-table set invitingly
near the fire. Analysis and introspection might come later; but
for the moment she was not even troubled by the excesses of the
upholstery or the restless convolutions of the furniture. The
sense of being once more lapped and folded in ease, as in some
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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 Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: indispensable, or when a man has to be worked as a quarry is worked
where the lime is rather scarce--going to ruin, as the quarry-men say.
On hearing these words, "Two hundred thousand francs," Crevel
understood all. He cheerfully raised the Baroness, saying insolently:
"Come, come, bear up, mother," which Adeline, in her distraction,
failed to hear. The scene was changing its character. Crevel was
becoming "master of the situation," to use his own words. The vastness
of the sum startled Crevel so greatly that his emotion at seeing this
handsome woman in tears at his feet was forgotten. Besides, however
angelical and saintly a woman may be, when she is crying bitterly her
beauty disappears. A Madame Marneffe, as has been seen, whimpers now
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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 Polly of the Circus by Margaret Mayo: turning her head to one side and studying him quizzically.
"I don't think there is," he replied good-naturedly.
"How did I come to fall in here, anyhow?" she asked, as she
studied the walls of the unfamiliar room.
"We brought you here."
"It's a swell place," she conceded grudgingly.
"We are comfortable," he admitted, as a tell- tale smile again
hovered about his lips. He was thinking of the changes that he
must presently make in Miss Polly's vocabulary.
"Is this the 'big top?' she asked.
"The--what?" he stammered.
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