| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne: case, there was very much the same solemnity of demeanour on the
part of the spectators, as befitted a people among whom religion
and law were almost identical, and in whose character both were
so thoroughly interfused, that the mildest and severest acts of
public discipline were alike made venerable and awful. Meagre,
indeed, and cold, was the sympathy that a transgressor might look
for, from such bystanders, at the scaffold. On the other hand, a
penalty which, in our days, would infer a degree of mocking
infamy and ridicule, might then be invested with almost as stern
a dignity as the punishment of death itself.
The Scarlet Letter |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Ten Years Later by Alexandre Dumas: losing an instant, D'Artagnan ordered his little bark to put
its head towards Sarzeau. We know that the wind changes with
the different hours of the day. The breeze had veered from
the north north-east to the south-east: the wind, then, was
almost as good for the return to Sarzeau, as it had been for
the voyage to Belle-Isle. In three hours D'Artagnan had
touched the continent, two hours more sufficed for his ride
to Vannes. In spite of the rapidity of his passage, what
D'Artagnan endured of impatience and anger during that short
passage, the deck alone of the vessel, upon which he stamped
backwards and forwards for three hours, could testify. He
Ten Years Later |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from St. Ives by Robert Louis Stevenson: a gang of banditti, such as we call CHAUFFEURS. In a word, he was
tortured, and died of it. See,' I added, kicking off one shoe, for
I had no stockings; 'I was no more than a child, and see how they
had begun to treat myself.'
He looked at the mark of my old burn with a certain shrinking.
'Beastly people!' I heard him mutter to himself.
'The English may say so with a good grace,' I observed politely.
Such speeches were the coin in which I paid my way among this
credulous race. Ninety per cent. of our visitors would have
accepted the remark as natural in itself and creditable to my
powers of judgment, but it appeared my lawyer was more acute.
|
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 The First Men In The Moon by H. G. Wells: walls of the tunnel scintillated like gems, ever and again the tunnel
expanded into a stalactitic cavern, or gave off branches that vanished
into darkness.
We seemed to be marching down that tunnel for a long time. "Trickle,
trickle," went the flowing light very softly, and our footfalls and their
echoes made an irregular paddle, paddle. My mind settled down to the
question of my chains. If I were to slip off one turn so, and then to
twist it so ...
If I tried to do it very gradually, would they see I was slipping my wrist
out of the looser turn? If they did, what would they do?
"Bedford," said Cavor, "it goes down. It keeps on going down."
The First Men In The Moon |
