| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Copy-Cat & Other Stories by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: could talk over the affair together, and the little
girl, Lily Jennings, had no intimate girl friend to
tempt her to confidence. She had only little Amelia
Wheeler, commonly called by the pupils of Madame's
school "The Copy-Cat."
Amelia was an odd little girl -- that is, everybody
called her odd. She was that rather unusual crea-
ture, a child with a definite ideal; and that ideal was
Lily Jennings. However, nobody knew that. If
Amelia's mother, who was a woman of strong charac-
ter, had suspected, she would have taken strenuous
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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 Poems of Goethe, Bowring, Tr. by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: -----
THE GOLDSMITH'S APPRENTICE.
My neighbour, none can e'er deny,
Is a most beauteous maid;
Her shop is ever in mine eye,
When working at my trade.
To ring and chain I hammer then
The wire of gold assay'd,
And think the while: "For Kate, oh when
Will such a ring be made?"
And when she takes her shutters down,
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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 Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: It would not yield. The Barbarians came crushing against it;--and for
some minutes there was an oscillation throughout the army, which
became weaker and weaker, and at last ceased.
The Carthaginians had placed soldiers on the aqueduct, they began to
hurl stones, balls, and beams. Spendius represented that it would be
best not to persist. The Barbarians went and posted themselves further
off, all being quite resolved to lay siege to Carthage.
The rumour of the war, however, had passed beyond the confines of the
Punic empire; and from the pillars of Hercules to beyond Cyrene
shepherds mused on it as they kept their flocks, and caravans talked
about it in the light of the stars. This great Carthage, mistress of
Salammbo |
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 Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: influence of greater minds, are balked of their lives.
Here was Mme. de Bargeton, for instance, smiting the lyre for every
trifle, and publishing her emotions indiscriminately to her circle. As
a matter of fact, when sensations appeal to an audience of one, it is
better to keep them to ourselves. A sunset certainly is a glorious
poem; but if a woman describes it, in high-sounding words, for the
benefit of matter-of-fact people, is she not ridiculous? There are
pleasures which can only be felt to the full when two souls meet, poet
and poet, heart and heart. She had a trick of using high-sounding
phrases, interlarded with exaggerated expressions, the kind of stuff
ingeniously nicknamed tartines by the French journalist, who furnishes
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