| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg by Mark Twain: from opposite directions. They met, panting, at the foot of the
printing-office stairs; by the night-light there they read each
other's face. Cox whispered:
"Nobody knows about this but us?"
The whispered answer was:
"Not a soul--on honour, not a soul!"
"If it isn't too late to--"
The men were starting up-stairs; at this moment they were overtaken
by a boy, and Cox asked,
"Is that you, Johnny?"
"Yes, sir."
The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from End of the Tether by Joseph Conrad: the Fair Maid, together with the rest of the crew, after
the completion of the sale, he had hung, in his faded
blue suit and floppy gray hat, about the doors of the
Harbor Office, till one day, seeing Captain Whalley
coming along to get a crew for the Sofala, he had put
himself quietly in the way, with his bare feet in the dust
and an upward mute glance. The eyes of his old com-
mander had fallen on him favorably--it must have
been an auspicious day--and in less than half an hour
the white men in the "Ofiss" had written his name on
a document as Serang of the fire-ship Sofala. Since
End of the Tether |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy: Then the porter of the front gate was interrogated, and on reflection he said
that he remembered hearing a sort of splashing in the stream at the back,
but he had taken no notice, thinking some ducks had come down the river
from above.
"She must have walked through the river!" said a mistress.
"Or drownded herself," said the porter.
The mind of the matron was horrified--not so much at the possible
death of Sue as at the possible half-column detailing that event
in all the newspapers, which, added to the scandal of the year before,
would give the college an unenviable notoriety for many months
to come.
Jude the Obscure |
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 Sanitary and Social Lectures by Charles Kingsley: rhythmically, and prevented violent motion, or unseemly attitude.
We, the civilised, need physiologists to remind us of these simple
facts, and even then do not act on them. Those old half-barbarous
Greeks had found them out for themselves, and, moreover, acted on
them.
But fair Nausicaa must have been--some will say--surely a mere
child of nature, and an uncultivated person?
So far from it, that her whole demeanour and speech show culture
of the very highest sort, full of "sweetness and light."--
Intelligent and fearless, quick to perceive the bearings of her
strange and sudden adventure, quick to perceive the character of
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