| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf: very strong. A house takes up a lot of time if you do it properly.
Our servants were always bad, and so Aunt Lucy used to do a good deal
in the kitchen, and Aunt Clara, I think, spent most of the morning
dusting the drawing-room and going through the linen and silver.
Then there were the dogs. They had to be exercised, besides being
washed and brushed. Now Sandy's dead, but Aunt Clara has a very
old cockatoo that came from India. Everything in our house,"
she exclaimed, "comes from somewhere! It's full of old furniture,
not really old, Victorian, things mother's family had or father's
family had, which they didn't like to get rid of, I suppose,
though we've really no room for them. It's rather a nice house,"
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed by Edna Ferber: in two solemn rows down the length of the narrow room.
Three or four stout, blond girls plodded back and forth,
from tables to front shop, bearing trays of cakes and
steaming cups of coffee. There was a rumble and clatter
of German. Every one seemed to know every one else. A
game of chess was in progress at one table, and between
moves each contestant would refresh himself with a
long-drawn, sibilant mouthful of coffee. There was
nothing about the place or its occupants to remind one of
America. This dim, smoky, cake-scented cafe was Germany.
"Time!" said Blackie. "Here comes Rosie to take our
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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 Forged Coupon by Leo Tolstoy: you be.
The discussion came to nothing, and all would
have ended well if Missael had not preached the
next day at mass, denouncing the wicked seducers
of the faithful and saying that they deserved the
worst punishment. Coming out of the church, the
crowd of peasants began to consult whether it
would not be well to give the infidels a good lesson
for disturbing the minds of the community. The
same day, just when Missael was enjoying some
salmon and gangfish, dining at the village priest's
The Forged Coupon |
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 Philebus by Plato: unadulterated and freest from any admixture of other colours?
PROTARCHUS: Clearly that which is most unadulterated.
SOCRATES: True, Protarchus; and so the purest white, and not the greatest
or largest in quantity, is to be deemed truest and most beautiful?
PROTARCHUS: Right.
SOCRATES: And we shall be quite right in saying that a little pure white
is whiter and fairer and truer than a great deal that is mixed.
PROTARCHUS: Perfectly right.
SOCRATES: There is no need of adducing many similar examples in
illustration of the argument about pleasure; one such is sufficient to
prove to us that a small pleasure or a small amount of pleasure, if pure or
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