| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Edition of The Ambassadors by Henry James: rather not. Your correspondence with Mother's your own affair. I'm
only WITH you both on it, whatever it is." Strether, at this, while
their eyes met, slowly folded the missive and put it in his pocket;
after which, before he had spoken again, Chad broke fresh ground.
"Has Miss Gostrey come back?"
But when Strether presently spoke it wasn't in answer. "It's not, I
gather, that your mother's physically ill; her health, on the
whole, this spring, seems to have been better than usual. But she's
worried, she's anxious, and it appears to have risen within the
last few days to a climax. We've tired out, between us, her
patience."
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Iliad by Homer: aloft, and hurled it with prodigious force. This millstone of a
rock broke Hector's shield inwards and threw him down on his back
with the shield crushing him under it, but Apollo raised him at
once. Thereon they would have hacked at one another in close
combat with their swords, had not heralds, messengers of gods and
men, come forward, one from the Trojans and the other from the
Achaeans--Talthybius and Idaeus both of them honourable men;
these parted them with their staves, and the good herald Idaeus
said, "My sons, fight no longer, you are both of you valiant, and
both are dear to Jove; we know this; but night is now falling,
and the behests of night may not be well gainsaid."
The Iliad |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Light of Western Stars by Zane Grey: scornful words, "You might have saved me a hell of a lot of
trouble!" What trouble? She felt again the cold shock of
contact with the gun she had dropped in horror. He meant the
trouble of getting himself shot in the only way a man could seek
death without cowardice. But had he any other motive? She
recalled Don Carlos and his guerrillas. Then the thought leaped
up in her mind with gripping power that Stewart meant to hunt Don
Carlos, to meet him, to kill him. It would be the deed of a
silent, vengeful, implacable man driven by wild justice such as
had been the deadly leaven in Monty Price. It was a deed to
expect of Nels or Nick Steel--and, aye, of Gene Stewart.
The Light of Western Stars |
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 Complete Angler by Izaak Walton: other ways. This kind of way they catch very many: but I would not
believe it till I was an eye-witness of it, nor do I like it now I have seen
it.
Venator. But, master, do not Trouts see us in the night?
Piscator Yes, and hear, and smell too, both then and in the day-time: for
Gesner observes, the Otter smells a fish forty furlongs off him in the
water: and that it may be true, seems to be affirmed by Sir Francis
Bacon, in the eighth century of his Natural History, who there proves
that waters may be the medium of sounds, by demonstrating it thus: "
That if you knock two stones together very deep under the water, those
that stand on a bank near to that place may hear the noise without any
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