| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane: very correct and commendable rules. His ac-
tions had been sagacious things. They had been
full of strategy. They were the work of a mas-
ter's legs.
Thoughts of his comrades came to him. The
brittle blue line had withstood the blows and won.
He grew bitter over it. It seemed that the blind
ignorance and stupidity of those little pieces had
betrayed him. He had been overturned and
crushed by their lack of sense in holding the po-
sition, when intelligent deliberation would have
The Red Badge of Courage |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe: meaning so quickly, that she gave her negative before I could
explain myself.
To bring this part into as narrow a compass as possible, I quitted
my lodging at St. Jones's and went to my new governess, for
so they called her in the house, and there I was indeed treated
with so much courtesy, so carefully looked to, so handsomely
provided, and everything so well, that I was surprised at it, and
could not at first see what advantage my governess made of it;
but I found afterwards that she professed to make no profit of
lodgers' diet, nor indeed could she get much by it, but that
her profit lay in the other articles of her management, and she
Moll Flanders |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Of The Nature of Things by Lucretius: And use the senses. Verily, as the eye,
Alone, up-rended from its roots, apart
From all the body, can peer about at naught,
So soul and mind it seems are nothing able,
When by themselves. No marvel, because, commixed
Through veins and inwards, and through bones and thews,
Their elements primordial are confined
By all the body, and own no power free
To bound around through interspaces big,
Thus, shut within these confines, they take on
Motions of sense, which, after death, thrown out
Of The Nature of Things |
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 New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells: raids of hers! I forget most of the other people at that dinner,
nor can I recall what the crowning rally was about. It didn't in
any way join on to my impression of Margaret.
In the drawing-room of the matting floor I rejoined her, with
Altiora's manifest connivance, and in the interval I had been
thinking of our former meeting.
"Do you find London," I asked, "give you more opportunity for doing
things and learning things than Burslem?"
She showed at once she appreciated my allusion to her former
confidences. "I was very discontented then," she said and paused.
"I've really only been in London for a few months. It's so
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