| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Dreams by Olive Schreiner: he shall not know, serve him; if you have anything you value share it with
him, so, serving him, you will at last come to feel possession in him, and
you will forgive.' And he said, 'I will do it.' Afterwards, as I passed
by in the dark of night, I heard one crying out, 'I have done all. It
helps nothing! My speaking well of him helps me nothing! If I share my
heart's blood with him, is the burning within me less? I cannot forgive; I
cannot forgive! Oh, God, I cannot forgive!'
"I said to him, 'See here, look back on all your past. See from your
childhood all smallness, all indirectness that has been yours; look well at
it, and in its light do you not see every man your brother? Are you so
sinless you have right to hate?'
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy: are not all the world. You can get to be a student in some other, no doubt."
"I'll ask Mr. Phillotson," she said decisively.
Sue's kind hostess now returned from church, and there was
no more intimate conversation. Jude left in the afternoon,
hopelessly unhappy. But he had seen her, and sat with her.
Such intercourse as that would have to content him for
the remainder of his life. The lesson of renunciation
it was necessary and proper that he, as a parish priest,
should learn.
But the next morning when he awoke he felt rather vexed with her,
and decided that she was rather unreasonable, not to say capricious.
Jude the Obscure |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The People That Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs: which ours was located; and then, knowing that she could do
nothing for me until after the Band-lu slept, she had hastened
to return to our cave. With difficulty she had reached it,
after having been stalked by a cave-lion and almost seized.
I trembled at the risk she had run.
It had been her intention to wait until after midnight, when
most of the carnivora would have made their kills, and then
attempt to reach the cave in which I was imprisoned and rescue me.
She explained that with my rifle and pistol--both of which
she assured me she could use, having watched me so many
times--she planned upon frightening the Band-lu and forcing
The People That Time Forgot |
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 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, etc. by Oscar Wilde: Hughes is that picture in front of you, and the picture is a
forgery. Don't be carried away by mere sentiment in this matter.
Whatever romance may have to say about the Willie Hughes theory,
reason is dead against it.'
'I don't understand you,' said Erskine, looking at me in amazement.
'Why, you yourself have convinced me by your letter that Willie
Hughes is an absolute reality. Why have you changed your mind? Or
is all that you have been saying to me merely a joke?'
'I cannot explain it to you,' I rejoined, 'but I see now that there
is really nothing to be said in favour of Cyril Graham's
interpretation. The Sonnets are addressed to Lord Pembroke. For
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