| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: intolerable. He fixed his eyes upon the crack, and stared steadfastly
at the sheet. And lo! he saw plainly the sheet begin to open, as
though hands were pushing from underneath, and trying to throw it off.
"Lord God, what is it!" he shrieked, crossing himself in despair--and
awoke.
And was this, too, a dream? He sprang from his bed, half-mad, and
could not comprehend what had happened to him. Was it the oppression
of a nightmare, the raving of fever, or an actual apparition? Striving
to calm, as far as possible, his mental tumult, and stay the wildly
rushing blood, which beat with straining pulses in every vein, he went
to the window and opened it. The cool breeze revived him. The
Taras Bulba and Other Tales |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from When the Sleeper Wakes by H. G. Wells: the time--he was terrible. Heaven save them! For
nothing on earth can now, he has raised the Labour
Companies upon them. No one else would have
dared. All the blue canvas armed and marching! He
will go through with it. He will go through."
He was silent for a little while. "This Sleeper," he
said, and stopped.
"Yes," said Graham. "Well?"
The senile voice sank to a confidential whisper, the
dim, pale face came close. "The real Sleeper--"
"Yes," said Graham.
When the Sleeper Wakes |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Man against the Sky by Edwin Arlington Robinson: And this was all before the day
When Time tossed roses in his path.
Before the roses ever came
Llewellyn had already risen.
The roses may have ruined him,
They may have kept him out of prison.
And she who brought them, being Fate,
Made roses do the work of spears, --
Though many made no more of her
Than civet, coral, rouge, and years.
You ask us what Llewellyn saw,
|
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 Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells: discursive interests, you see, because they are more serious,
they are concentrated on the central reality of life, and a
little impatient of its--its outer aspects. At least that, I
think, is what makes a clever woman's independent career so much
more difficult than a clever man's."
"She doesn't develop a specialty." Ann Veronica was doing her
best to follow him.
"She has one, that's why. Her specialty is the central thing in
life, it is life itself, the warmth of life, sex--and love."
He pronounced this with an air of profound conviction and with
his eyes on Ann Veronica's face. He had an air of having told
|
