| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Desert Gold by Zane Grey: that put Cameron on the rack. He had faced death too often to be
afraid. It was the thought of adding torture to this long-suffering
man. All at once Cameron swore that he would not augment Warren's
trouble, or let him stain his hands with blood. He would tell the
truth of Nell's sad story and his own, and make what amends he could.
Then Cameron's thought shifted from father to daughter. She was
somewhere beyond the dim horizon line. In those past lonely hours
by the campfire his fancy had tortured him with pictures of Nell.
But his remorseful and cruel fancy had lied to him. Nell had
struggled upward out of menacing depths. She had reconstructed a
broken life. And now she was fighting for the name and happiness
Desert Gold |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen: Catherine had never wanted comfort more, and he looked
as if he was aware of it.
The evening wore away with no abatement of this
soothing politeness; and her spirits were gradually raised
to a modest tranquillity. She did not learn either
to forget or defend the past; but she learned to hope
that it would never transpire farther, and that it might
not cost her Henry's entire regard. Her thoughts being
still chiefly fixed on what she had with such causeless
terror felt and done, nothing could shortly be clearer than
that it had been all a voluntary, self-created delusion,
Northanger Abbey |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte by Karl Marx: which had been wrung from it by centuries of struggles. Instead of
society itself having conquered a new point, only the State appears to
have returned to its oldest form, to the simply brazen rule of the sword
and the club. Thus, upon the "coup de main" of February, 1848, comes
the response of the "coup de tete" December, 1851. So won, so lost.
Meanwhile, the interval did not go by unutilized. During the years
1848-1851, French society retrieved in abbreviated, because
revolutionary, method the lessons and teachings, which--if it was to be
more than a disturbance of the surface-should have preceded the February
revolution, had it developed in regular order, by rule, so to say. Now
French society seems to have receded behind its point of departure; in
|
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 Silas Marner by George Eliot: "Well, I think Miss Nancy's a-coming round again," said Ben, "for
Master Godfrey doesn't look so down-hearted to-night. And I see
he's for taking her away to sit down, now they're at the end o' the
dance: that looks like sweethearting, that does."
The reason why Godfrey and Nancy had left the dance was not so
tender as Ben imagined. In the close press of couples a slight
accident had happened to Nancy's dress, which, while it was short
enough to show her neat ankle in front, was long enough behind to be
caught under the stately stamp of the Squire's foot, so as to rend
certain stitches at the waist, and cause much sisterly agitation in
Priscilla's mind, as well as serious concern in Nancy's. One's
Silas Marner |
