| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Outlaw of Torn by Edgar Rice Burroughs: turned sixteen, Bertrade de Montfort," he said.
The girl was about nineteen, full of the vigor and
gaiety of youth and health; and so the two rode on
their journey talking and laughing as they might have
been friends of long standing.
She told him of the reason for the attack upon her
earlier in the day, attributing it to an attempt on the
part of a certain baron, Peter of Colfax, to abduct her,
his suit for her hand having been peremptorily and
roughly denied by her father.
Simon de Montfort was no man to mince words,
The Outlaw of Torn |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Silas Marner by George Eliot: her experience, a parlour where _she_ might one day have been
mistress, with the consciousness that she was spoken of as "Madam
Cass", the Squire's wife. These circumstances exalted her inward
drama in her own eyes, and deepened the emphasis with which she
declared to herself that not the most dazzling rank should induce
her to marry a man whose conduct showed him careless of his
character, but that, "love once, love always", was the motto of a
true and pure woman, and no man should ever have any right over her
which would be a call on her to destroy the dried flowers that she
treasured, and always would treasure, for Godfrey Cass's sake. And
Nancy was capable of keeping her word to herself under very trying
Silas Marner |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Dracula by Bram Stoker: as I expected, but took the matter in simple seriousness.
He thought for a moment, and then said, "May I have three days?
I shall clear them away." Of course, I said that would do.
I must watch him.
18 June.--He has turned his mind now to spiders,and has got several
very big fellows in a box. He keeps feeding them his flies,
and the number of the latter is becoming sensibly diminished,
although he has used half his food in attracting more flies
from outside to his room.
1 July.--His spiders are now becoming as great a nuisance as his flies,
and today I told him that he must get rid of them.
Dracula |
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 Animal Farm by George Orwell: Chapter VI
All that year the animals worked like slaves. But they were happy in their
work; they grudged no effort or sacrifice, well aware that everything that
they did was for the benefit of themselves and those of their kind who
would come after them, and not for a pack of idle, thieving human beings.
Throughout the spring and summer they worked a sixty-hour week, and in
August Napoleon announced that there would be work on Sunday afternoons
as well. This work was strictly voluntary, but any animal who absented
himself from it would have his rations reduced by half. Even so, it was
found necessary to leave certain tasks undone. The harvest was a little
less successful than in the previous year, and two fields which should
Animal Farm |
