| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy: exit, the scene was terrible. All the female guests were
huddled aghast against the walls like sheep in a storm,
and the men were bewildered as to what to do. As for
Bathsheba, she had changed. She was sitting on the
floor beside the body of Troy, his head pillowed in her
lap, where she had herself lifted it. With one hand she
held her handkerchief to his breast and covered the
wound, though scarcely a single drop of blood had
flowed, and with the other she tightly clasped one of
his. The household convulsion had made her herself
again. The temporary coma had ceased, and activity
Far From the Madding Crowd |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen: said she, "nothing could be more flattering than their
treatment of you;--but as that was not the case"--
"I guessed you would say so"--replied Lucy
quickly--"but there was no reason in the world why
Mrs. Ferrars should seem to like me, if she did not,
and her liking me is every thing. You shan't talk me
out of my satisfaction. I am sure it will all end well,
and there will be no difficulties at all, to what I
used to think. Mrs. Ferrars is a charming woman,
and so is your sister. They are both delightful women,
indeed!--I wonder I should never hear you say how agreeable
Sense and Sensibility |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Altar of the Dead by Henry James: granted he had his candle," she presently answered. "What's
changed, as you say, is that on making the discovery I find he
never has had it. That makes MY attitude" - she paused as thinking
how to express it, then said simply - "all wrong."
"Come once again," he pleaded.
"Will you give him his candle?" she asked.
He waited, but only because it would sound ungracious; not because
of a doubt of his feeling. "I can't do that!" he declared at last.
"Then good-bye." And she gave him her hand again.
He had got his dismissal; besides which, in the agitation of
everything that had opened out to him, he felt the need to recover
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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 Somebody's Little Girl by Martha Young: But this did not seem so strange to Bessie Bell, for she yet
remembered that window out of which one could see just small, green,
moving things, and of which great grown people had told her, ``No,
Bessie Bell, there is no such window in all the world.''
So in her own way she thought that maybe after awhile that the big,
big violet might drift away, away, and great grown people might say,
``No, Bessie Bell, there never was a violet in all the world like
that.''
It was the people--and all the people--of that new world that seemed
so strange to Bessie Bell.
There were children, and children in all the summer cabins on that
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