| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Father Goriot by Honore de Balzac: are about'; but, nom d'une pipe, the devil himself is not an
uglier customer than I can be if people annoy me, or if I don't
happen to take to them; and you may just as well know at once
that I think no more of killing a man than of that," and he spat
before him as he spoke. "Only when it is absolutely necessary to
do so, I do my best to kill him properly. I am what you call an
artist. I have read Benvenuto Cellini's Memoirs, such as you see
me; and, what is more, in Italian: A fine-spirited fellow he was!
From him I learned to follow the example set us by Providence,
who strikes us down at random, and to admire the beautiful
whenever and wherever it is found. And, setting other questions
Father Goriot |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy: engaged to you when we have asked papa.' She considered a moment,
and added more seriously, 'I know now where I dropped it, Stephen.
It was on the cliff. I remember a faint sensation of some change
about me, but I was too absent to think of it then. And that's
where it is now, and you must go and look there.'
'I'll go at once.'
And he strode away up the valley, under a broiling sun and amid
the deathlike silence of early afternoon. He ascended, with
giddy-paced haste, the windy range of rocks to where they had sat,
felt and peered about the stones and crannies, but Elfride's stray
jewel was nowhere to be seen. Next Stephen slowly retraced his
A Pair of Blue Eyes |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy: the luxurious style in which he used to put her up there whenever
they drove to Sherton. But such is social sentiment, that she had
been quite comfortable under those debt-impending conditions,
while she felt humiliated by her present situation, which
Winterborne had paid for honestly on the nail.
He had noticed in a moment that she shrunk from her position, and
all his pleasure was gone. It was the same susceptibility over
again which had spoiled his Christmas party long ago.
But he did not know that this recrudescence was only the casual
result of Grace's apprenticeship to what she was determined to
learn in spite of it--a consequence of one of those sudden
The Woodlanders |
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 Main Street by Sinclair Lewis: long ago have been white, smoked a pipe and spat at the
pest of sticky flies. In the center of the block, by itself, was
the stable for the three horses of the drayman, and beside it a
pile of manure.
The rear of Ezra Stowbody's bank was whitewashed, and
back of it was a concrete walk and a three-foot square of
grass, but the window was barred, and behind the bars she
saw Willis Woodford cramped over figures in pompous books.
He raised his head, jerkily rubbed his eyes, and went back
to the eternity of figures.
The backs of the other shops were an impressionistic picture
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