| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Copy-Cat & Other Stories by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: self. Harold had fair hair, which was very smooth
and glossy. His skin was like a girl's. He was so
beautiful that he showed cleverness in an affecta-
tion of carelessness in dress. He did not like to wear
evening clothes, because they had necessarily to
be immaculate. That evening Jane regarded him
with an inward criticism that he was too handsome
for a man. She told Viola so when the dinner was
over and he and the other guests had gone.
"He is very handsome," she said, "but I never
like to see a man quite so handsome."
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: country by-roads led hither and thither among the fields. It was
the most pointless labyrinth. I could see my destination overhead,
or rather the peak that dominates it; but choose as I pleased, the
roads always ended by turning away from it, and sneaking back
towards the valley, or northward along the margin of the hills.
The failing light, the waning colour, the naked, unhomely, stony
country through which I was travelling, threw me into some
despondency. I promise you, the stick was not idle; I think every
decent step that Modestine took must have cost me at least two
emphatic blows. There was not another sound in the neighbourhood
but that of my unwearying bastinado.
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum: "How?" asked Dorothy.
"A balloon," said Oz, "is made of silk, which is coated with
glue to keep the gas in it. I have plenty of silk in the Palace,
so it will be no trouble to make the balloon. But in all this
country there is no gas to fill the balloon with, to make it float."
"If it won't float," remarked Dorothy, "it will be of no use to us."
"True," answered Oz. "But there is another way to make it
float, which is to fill it with hot air. Hot air isn't as good as
gas, for if the air should get cold the balloon would come down in
the desert, and we should be lost."
"We!" exclaimed the girl. "Are you going with me?"
The Wizard of Oz |
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 Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy: should be killed directly, before their souls come to 'em, and not
allowed to grow big and walk about!"
Sue did not reply. She was doubtfully pondering how to treat this
too reflective child.
She at last concluded that, so far as circumstances permitted,
she would be honest and candid with one who entered into her
difficulties like an aged friend.
"There is going to be another in our family soon," she hesitatingly remarked.
"How?"
"There is going to be another baby."
"What!" The boy jumped up wildly. "Oh God, Mother, you've never a-sent
Jude the Obscure |
