| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed by Edna Ferber: improvident; Mother, gravely sweet, anxious-browed,
trying to teach economy to the handsome Irish husband
who, descendant of a long and royal line of spendthrift
ancestors, would have none of it.
It was Dad who had insisted that they name me Dawn.
Dawn O'Hara! His sense of humor must have been sleeping.
"You were such a rosy, pinky, soft baby thing," Mother
had once told me, "that you looked just like the first
flush of light at sunrise. That is why your father
insisted on calling you Dawn."
Poor Dad! How could he know that at twenty-eight I
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from King Henry VI by William Shakespeare: [Enter Sir John Fastolfe.]
FASTOLFE.
My gracious sovereign, as I rode from Calais,
To haste unto your coronation,
A letter was deliver'd to my hands,
Writ to your Grace from the Duke of Burgundy.
TALBOT.
Shame to the Duke of Burgundy and thee!
I vow'd, base knight, when I did meet thee next,
To tear the garter from thy craven's leg, [Plucking it off.]
Which I have done, because unworthily
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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 The Jungle by Upton Sinclair: and wrestle in prayer, trying to show them the right. Sometimes they
would be obstinate and refuse to see it, and Jurgis, alas, was not always
patient! He forgot how he himself had been blind, a short time ago--
after the fashion of all crusaders since the original ones, who set out
to spread the gospel of Brotherhood by force of arms.
Chapter 9
One of the first consequences of the discovery of the union was that
Jurgis became desirous of learning English. He wanted to know what
was going on at the meetings, and to be able to take part in them,
and so he began to look about him, and to try to pick up words.
The children, who were at school, and learning fast, would teach him
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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 Seraphita by Honore de Balzac: The fish of the fiord were numerous enough to suffice, in part at
least, for the sustenance of the inhabitants; the valley pastures
provided milk and butter; a certain amount of fruitful, well-tilled
soil yielded rye and hemp and vegetables, which necessity taught the
people to protect against the severity of the cold and the fleeting
but terrible heat of the sun with the shrewd ability which Norwegians
display in the two-fold struggle. The difficulty of communication with
the outer world, either by land where the roads are impassable, or by
sea where none but tiny boats can thread their way through the
maritime defiles that guard the entrance to the bay, hinder these
people from growing rich by the sale of their timber. It would cost
Seraphita |
