| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Rescue by Joseph Conrad: illegality. The light played about his obese figure, he had flung
his mushroom hat on the deck, he was not afraid to speak the
truth. The grey moustache stood out aggressively, his glances
were uneasy; he pressed his hands to his stomach convulsively,
opened his thick, short arms wide, wished it to be understood he
had been chief-officer of home ships, with a spotless character
and he hoped "quite up to his work." He was a peaceable man, none
more; disposed to stretch a point when it "came to a difference
with niggers of some kind--they had to be taught manners and
reason" and he was not averse at a pinch to--but here were white
people--gentlemen, ladies, not to speak of the crew. He had never
The Rescue |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell: He'll--"
Archie turned to her, his eye malevolent, and when he spoke there
was cold anger in his rusty voice.
"The day you gits convicts is the day I quits you," he said.
Scarlett was startled. "Good heavens! Why?"
"I knows about convict leasin'. I calls it convict murderin'.
Buyin' men like they was mules. Treatin' them worse than mules
ever was treated. Beatin' them, starvin' them, killin' them. And
who cares? The State don't care. It's got the lease money. The
folks that gits the convicts, they don't care. All they want is to
feed them cheap and git all the work they can out of them. Hell,
Gone With the Wind |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin by Robert Louis Stevenson: The ear normally hangs down behind; the goat turns sideways to her
enemy - by a little knowing cock of the head flicks one ear over
one eye, and squints from behind it for half a minute - tosses her
head back, skips a pace or two further off, and repeats the
manoeuvre. The cook is very fat and cannot run after that goat
much.
'PERNAMBUCO, AUG. 1. - We landed here yesterday, all well and cable
sound, after a good passage. . . . I am on familiar terms with
cocoa-nuts, mangoes, and bread-fruit trees, but I think I like the
negresses best of anything I have seen. In turbans and loose sea-
green robes, with beautiful black-brown complexions and a stately
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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 New Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson: And all my vintage drips in a cocoon.
Generous are you, but I more generous still:
Take back your farm and stand me half a gill!
AD QUINTILIANUM
O CHIEF director of the growing race,
Of Rome the glory and of Rome the grace,
Me, O Quintilian, may you not forgive
Before from labour I make haste to live?
Some burn to gather wealth, lay hands on rule,
Or with white statues fill the atrium full.
The talking hearth, the rafters sweet with smoke,
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