| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy: had hastily dressed herself and lighted a fire, the other
servant being left to snore on in peace at the back
of the house. The insensible forms of Eustacia, Clym,
and Wildeve were then brought in and laid on the carpet,
with their feet to the fire, when such restorative
processes as could be thought of were adopted at once,
the stableman being in the meantime sent for a doctor.
But there seemed to be not a whiff of life in either
of the bodies. Then Thomasin, whose stupor of grief
had been thrust off awhile by frantic action, applied a
bottle of hartshorn to Clym's nostrils, having tried
Return of the Native |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: with her quick glittering glances.
Just so we have the great sun-kindled, constructive imaginations,
and a far more numerous class of poets who have a certain kind of
moonlight-genius given them to compensate for their imperfection of
nature. Their want of mental coloring-matter makes them sensitive
to those impressions which stronger minds neglect or never feel at
all. Many of them die young, and all of them are tinged with
melancholy. There is no more beautiful illustration of the
principle of compensation which marks the Divine benevolence than
the fact that some of the holiest lives and some of the sweetest
songs are the growth of the infirmity which unfits its subject for
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Jungle Tales of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: As he did so he noticed, with a start, the strange
incongruity of that smooth, brown arm against the black
and hairy coat of his lady-love. He recalled the paw of
Sheeta's mate across Sheeta's face--no incongruity there.
He thought of little Manu hugging his she, and how the one
seemed to belong to the other. Even the proud male bird,
with his gay plumage, bore a close resemblance to his
quieter spouse, while Numa, but for his shaggy mane,
was almost a counterpart of Sabor, the lioness.
The males and the females differed, it was true;
but not with such differences as existed between Tarzan
The Jungle Tales of Tarzan |
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 Montezuma's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard: leaving me naked except for a cloth about my loins and a chaplet of
bright flowers which was set upon my head. In this chamber were
three other men, Indians, who from the horror on their faces I
judged to be also doomed to death.
Presently a drum began to beat high above us, and we were taken
from the chamber and placed in a procession of many priests, I
being the first among the victims. Then the priests set up a chant
and we began the ascent of the pyramid, following a road that wound
round and round its bulk till it ended on a platform at its summit,
which may have measured forty paces in the square. Hence the view
of the surrounding country was very fine, but in that hour I
Montezuma's Daughter |
