| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Heart of the West by O. Henry: about like toads, gobbling silently and voraciously his finest fruit.
Dry Valley slipped into the house, got his whip, and charged the
marauders. The lash curled about the legs of the nearest--a greedy
ten-year-old--before they knew they were discovered. His screech gave
warning; and the flock scampered for the fence like a drove of
/javelis/ flushed in the chaparral. Dry Valley's whip drew a toll of
two more elfin shrieks before they dived through the vine-clad fence
and disappeared.
Dry Valley, less fleet, followed them nearly to the pickets. Checking
his useless pursuit, he rounded a bush, dropped his whip and stood,
voiceless, motionless, the capacity of his powers consumed by the act
Heart of the West |
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 Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart: weather, and then stalked into the dressing-room, and prepared, with
much ostentatious creaking, to sit up all night.
We fell silent again, while McKnight traced a rough outline of the
berths on the white table-cover, and puzzled it out slowly. It was
something like this:
____________________________________
| 12 | 10 | 8 |
|____________|___________|___________|
|_______________AISLE________________|
| 11 | 9 | 7 |
|____________|___________|___________|
The Man in Lower Ten |
