| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Turn of the Screw by Henry James: I gave way for the time to the apprehension of ridicule.
But the next day, as the hour for my drive approached, I cropped
up in another place. "What was the lady who was here before?"
"The last governess? She was also young and pretty--
almost as young and almost as pretty, miss, even as you."
"Ah, then, I hope her youth and her beauty helped her!"
I recollect throwing off. "He seems to like us young and pretty!"
"Oh, he DID," Mrs. Grose assented: "it was the way he liked everyone!"
She had no sooner spoken indeed than she caught herself up.
"I mean that's HIS way--the master's."
I was struck. "But of whom did you speak first?"
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen: more than once tried to make his father think of Fanny,
and her long absence and long journey.
After sitting some time longer, a candle was obtained;
but as there was still no appearance of tea, nor, from
Betsey's reports from the kitchen, much hope of any under
a considerable period, William determined to go and change
his dress, and make the necessary preparations for his removal
on board directly, that he might have his tea in comfort
afterwards.
As he left the room, two rosy-faced boys, ragged and dirty,
about eight and nine years old, rushed into it just released
Mansfield Park |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce: have been a deputy sheriff. At a short remove upon the same
temporary platform was an officer in the uniform of his rank,
armed. He was a captain. A sentinel at each end of the
bridge stood with his rifle in the position known as
"support," that is to say, vertical in front of the left
shoulder, the hammer resting on the forearm thrown straight
across the chest -- a formal and unnatural position,
enforcing an erect carriage of the body. It did not appear
to be the duty of these two men to know what was occurring at
the center of the bridge; they merely blockaded the two ends
of the foot planking that traversed it.
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge |
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 Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: the carcass from out of the way before him, and approached
valorously over the silver pavement of the castle to where
the shield was upon the wall; which in sooth tarried not for his
full coming, but fell down at his feet upon the silver floor,
with a mighty great and terrible ringing sound."
No sooner had these syllables passed my lips, than--as if a
shield of brass had indeed, at the moment, fallen heavily upon a
floor of silver--I became aware of a distinct, hollow, metallic,
and clangorous, yet apparently muffled reverberation. Completely
unnerved, I leaped to my feet; but the measured rocking movement
of Usher was undisturbed. I rushed to the chair in which he sat.
The Fall of the House of Usher |
