| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave by Frederick Douglass: be killed; and, being encouraged by the journey-
men, they commenced making my condition as
hard as they could, by hectoring me around, and
sometimes striking me. I, of course, kept the vow
I made after the fight with Mr. Covey, and struck
back again, regardless of consequences; and while
I kept them from combining, I succeeded very well;
for I could whip the whole of them, taking them
separately. They, however, at length combined, and
came upon me, armed with sticks, stones, and heavy
handspikes. One came in front with a half brick.
The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The First Men In The Moon by H. G. Wells: latter continually drawing nearer to us. We crawled through stony ravines,
over snow slopes, amidst fungi that ripped like thin bladders at our
thrust, emitting a watery humour, over a perfect pavement of things like
puff-balls, and beneath interminable thickets of scrub. And ever more
helplessly our eyes sought for our abandoned sphere. The noise of the
mooncalves would at times be a vast flat calf-like sound, at times it rose
to an amazed and wrathy bellowing, and again it would become a clogged
bestial sound, as though these unseen creatures had sought to eat and
bellow at the same time.
Our first view was but an inadequate transitory glimpse, yet none the less
disturbing because it was incomplete. Cavor was crawling in front at the
The First Men In The Moon |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Pool in the Desert by Sara Jeanette Duncan: aren't we, Val?'
'You're not going?' said Mrs. Jack Owen.
'Oh, yes, I must. But I've enjoyed myself awfully, and so has
everybody I've been talking to. I say, Mickie, dear--about tomorrow
afternoon--I suppose I may bring Val?'
'Oh, dear, yes,' Mrs. Mickie replied. 'But you must let me hold his
hand.'
'I don't know which of you is the most ridiculous,' Mrs. Owen
remarked; 'I shall write to both your husbands this very night,' but
as the group shifted and left her alone with Mrs. Gammidge, she said
she didn't know whether Mrs. Vesey would be quite so chirpy three
|
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 Montezuma's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard: be, my mind passed to the Spaniard's sword with which I had tossed
it aside, and from the sword to the man himself. What had been his
business in this parish?--an ill one surely--and why had he looked
as though he feared me and fallen upon me when he learned my name?
I stood still, looking downward, and my eyes fell upon footprints
stamped in the wet sand of the path. One of them was my mother's.
I could have sworn to it among a thousand, for no other woman in
these parts had so delicate a foot. Close to it, as though
following after, was another that at first I thought must also have
been made by a woman, it was so narrow. But presently I saw that
this could scarcely be, because of its length, and moreover, that
Montezuma's Daughter |
