| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: being kept open for long distance from Detroit. Taking out my
time-table, I drew a small circle around the three-fifty train. Then I
leaned back in my chair and tried to think. It was just noon.
When I passed the ashheaps on the train that morning I had crossed
deliberately to the other side of the car. I suppose there'd be a
curious crowd around there all day with little boys searching for dark
spots in the dust, and some garrulous man telling over and over what
had happened, until it became less and less real even to him and he
could tell it no longer, and Myrtle Wilson's tragic achievement was
forgotten. Now I want to go back a little and tell what happened at the
garage after we left there the night before.
The Great Gatsby |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Red Seal by Natalie Sumner Lincoln: asked.
"Generally no one, sir, because Colonel McIntyre accompanies them
or calls for them, and he has his latch-key. Lately," added Grimes
as an after-thought, "Miss Helen has been using a duplicate
latch-key."
"Has Miss Barbara McIntyre a latch-key, also?" asked Penfield.
"No, sir, I believe not," the butler looked dubious. "I recall
that Colonel McIntyre gave Miss Helen her key at the luncheon table,
and he said, then, to Miss Barbara that he couldn't trust her with
one because she would be sure to lose it, she is that careless."
The coroner asked the next question with such abruptness that the
The Red Seal |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn: From what do they flee thus perpetually? Is it from the giant
sawfish or the ravening shark?--from the herds of the porpoises,
or from the grande-ecaille,--that splendid monster whom no net
may hold,--all helmed and armored in argent plate-mail?--or from
the hideous devilfish of the Gulf,--gigantic, flat-bodied, black,
with immense side-fins ever outspread like the pinions of a
bat,--the terror of luggermen, the uprooter of anchors? From all
these, perhaps, and from other monsters likewise--goblin shapes
evolved by Nature as destroyers, as equilibrists, as
counterchecks to that prodigious fecundity, which, unhindered,
would thicken the deep into one measureless and waveless ferment
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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 Recruit by Honore de Balzac: understand the eager curiosity and searching inquiry which animated on
this occasion the Norman countenances of all these rejected visitors,
but more especially to enter into Madame de Dey's secret anxieties, it
is necessary to explain the role she played at Carentan. The critical
position in which she stood at this moment being that of many others
during the Revolution the sympathies and recollections of more than
one reader will help to give color to this narrative.
Madame de Dey, widow of a lieutenant-general, chevalier of the Orders,
had left the court at the time of the emigration. Possessing a good
deal of property in the neighborhood of Carentan, she took refuge in
that town, hoping that the influence of the Terror would be little
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