| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Altar of the Dead by Henry James: "And who will kindle one even for me?" she then seriously asked.
CHAPTER VI.
SHE was always in mourning, yet the day he came back from the
longest absence he had yet made her appearance immediately told him
she had lately had a bereavement. They met on this occasion as she
was leaving the church, so that postponing his own entrance he
instantly offered to turn round and walk away with her. She
considered, then she said: "Go in now, but come and see me in an
hour." He knew the small vista of her street, closed at the end
and as dreary as an empty pocket, where the pairs of shabby little
houses, semi-detached but indissolubly united, were like married
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: what an apotheosis of the dust! Not man himself can seem a
stranger child of that brown, friable powder, than the blood
and sun in that old flask behind the faggots.
A Californian vineyard, one of man's outposts in the
wilderness, has features of its own. There is nothing here
to remind you of the Rhine or Rhone, of the low COTE D'OR, or
the infamous and scabby deserts of Champagne; but all is
green, solitary, covert. We visited two of them, Mr.
Schram's and Mr. M'Eckron's, sharing the same glen.
Some way down the valley below Calistoga, we turned sharply
to the south and plunged into the thick of the wood. A rude
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: at noon. The straw seats of the car hovered on the edge of combustion;
the woman next to me perspired delicately for a while into her white
shirtwaist, and then, as her newspaper dampened under her fingers,
lapsed despairingly into deep heat with a desolate cry. Her pocket-book
slapped to the floor.
"Oh, my!" she gasped.
I picked it up with a weary bend and handed it back to her, holding it
at arm's length and by the extreme tip of the corners to indicate that
I had no designs upon it--but every one near by, including the woman,
suspected me just the same.
"Hot!" said the conductor to familiar faces. "Some weather! hot! hot! hot!
The Great Gatsby |
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 Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: obtain me that favour. My partner, however, remembering that I had
given five hundred moidores to the prior of the monastery of the
Augustines, and two hundred and seventy-two to the poor, went to
the monastery, and obliged the prior that then was to go to the
governor, and get leave for me personally, with the captain and one
more, besides eight seamen, to come on shore, and no more; and this
upon condition, absolutely capitulated for, that we should not
offer to land any goods out of the ship, or to carry any person
away without licence. They were so strict with us as to landing
any goods, that it was with extreme difficulty that I got on shore
three bales of English goods, such as fine broadcloths, stuffs, and
Robinson Crusoe |
