| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Wrong Box by Stevenson & Osbourne: her she was being sacrificed, Julia had refused to add to the
perplexities of Uncle Joseph.
In a large, dreary house in John Street, Bloomsbury, these four
dwelt together; a family in appearance, in reality a financial
association. Julia and Uncle Joseph were, of course, slaves;
John, a gentle man with a taste for the banjo, the music-hall,
the Gaiety bar, and the sporting papers, must have been anywhere
a secondary figure; and the cares and delights of empire devolved
entirely upon Morris. That these are inextricably intermixed is
one of the commonplaces with which the bland essayist consoles
the incompetent and the obscure, but in the case of Morris the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Ursula by Honore de Balzac: francs."
"In three of four years she will be twenty, and I shall be twenty-
seven," he thought. "The good doctor talked of probation, work, good
conduct! Sly as he is I shall make him tell me the truth."
The three neighbours parted in the street in front of their respective
homes, and Savinien put a little courting into his eyes as he gave
Ursula a parting glance.
Madame de Portenduere let her son sleep till midday; but the doctor
and Ursula, in spite of their fatiguing journey, went to high mass.
Savinien's release and his return in company with the doctor had
explained the reason of the latter's absence to the newsmongers of the
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence: It looked so strange, there in public, on the walls of the
Castle gallery, where in her lifetime she had seen so many pictures.
And she glanced round to see if anyone had noticed her again in front
of the same sketch.
But she felt a proud woman. When she met well-dressed ladies
going home to the Park, she thought to herself:
"Yes, you look very well--but I wonder if YOUR son has two
first prizes in the Castle."
And she walked on, as proud a little woman as any in Nottingham.
And Paul felt he had done something for her, if only a trifle.
All his work was hers.
Sons and Lovers |
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 Road to Oz by L. Frank Baum: grey, his whiskers were grey; and these whiskers were so long that he
had wound the ends of them around his waist and tied them in a hard
knot underneath the leather apron that reached from his chin nearly to
his feet, and which was soiled and scratched as if it had been used a
long time. His nose was broad, and stuck up a little; but his eyes
were twinkling and merry. The little man's hands and arms were as
hard and tough as the leather in his apron, and Dorothy thought Johnny
Dooit looked as if he had done a lot of hard work in his lifetime.
"Good morning, Johnny," said the shaggy man. "Thank you for coming to
me so quickly."
"I never waste time," said the newcomer, promptly. "But what's
The Road to Oz |
