| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence: Only the grey half of a human being. As yet, they were 'good'. But even
that was the goodness of their halfness. Supposing the dead in them
ever rose up! But no, it was too terrible to think of. Connie was
absolutely afraid of the industrial masses. They seemed so WEIRD to
her. A life with utterly no beauty in it, no intuition, always 'in the
pit'.
Children from such men! Oh God, oh God!
Yet Mellors had come from such a father. Not quite. Forty years had
made a difference, an appalling difference in manhood. The iron and the
coal had eaten deep into the bodies and souls of the men.
Incarnate ugliness, and yet alive! What would become of them all?
Lady Chatterley's Lover |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Hidden Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac: man might claim to be possessed of genuine merit. The habit of success
lessens doubt; and modesty, perhaps, is doubt.
Worn down with poverty and discouragement, and dismayed at this moment
by his own presumption, the young neophyte might not have dared to
enter the presence of the master to whom we owe our admirable portrait
of Henry IV., if chance had not thrown an unexpected assistance in his
way. An old man mounted the spiral stairway. The oddity of his dress,
the magnificence of his lace ruffles, the solid assurance of his
deliberate step, led the youth to assume that this remarkable
personage must be the patron, or at least the intimate friend, of the
painter. He drew back into a corner of the landing and made room for
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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 The Complete Poems of Longfellow by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Paul Revere's Ride
Interlude
The Student's Tale
The Falcon of Ser Federigo
Interlude
The Spanish Jew's Tale
The Legend of Rabbi Ben Levi
Interlude
The Sicilian's Tale
King Robert of Sicily
Interlude
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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 Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: low, a wide green trough of pastures and hedges
merging inland into a vista of purple tints and
flowing lines closing the view.
In this valley down to Brenzett and Colebrook
and up to Darnford, the market town fourteen
miles away, lies the practice of my friend Kennedy.
He had begun life as surgeon in the Navy, and
afterwards had been the companion of a famous
traveller, in the days when there were continents
with unexplored interiors. His papers on the
fauna and flora made him known to scientific socie-
Amy Foster |
