| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte: Desiring to have his reasons for liking him, I could only gather
the sentences - 'I known't: he pays dad back what he gies to me -
he curses daddy for cursing me. He says I mun do as I will.'
'And the curate does not teach you to read and write, then?' I
pursued.
'No, I was told the curate should have his - teeth dashed down his
- throat, if he stepped over the threshold - Heathcliff had
promised that!'
I put the orange in his hand, and bade him tell his father that a
woman called Nelly Dean was waiting to speak with him, by the
garden gate. He went up the walk, and entered the house; but,
Wuthering Heights |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela: you can go back to your picks and shovels, you can
resume your hand-to-mouth existence, you can go half-
naked and hungry just as you did before, while we, your
superiors, will go about trying to pile up a few million
pesos. . . .'"
Demetrio nodded and, smiling, scratched his head.
"You said a mouthful, Louie," Venancio the barber
put in enthusiastically. "A mouthful as big as a church!"
"As I was saying," Luis Cervantes resumed, "when
the revolution is over, everything is over. Too bad that so
many men have been killed, too bad there are so many
The Underdogs |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 1 by Alexis de Toqueville: and which demands the daily exercise of a considerable share of
discretion on the part of those it governs.
A proposition must be plain to be adopted by the
understanding of a people. A false notion which is clear and
precise will always meet with a greater number of adherents in
the world than a true principle which is obscure or involved.
Hence it arises that parties, which are like small communities in
the heart of the nation, invariably adopt some principle or some
name as a symbol, which very inadequately represents the end they
have in view and the means which are at their disposal, but
without which they could neither act nor subsist. The
|
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 One Basket by Edna Ferber: me to phone."
And so Jo drifted into that sad-eyed, dyspeptic family made up of
those you see dining in second-rate restaurants, their paper
propped up against the bowl of oyster crackers, munching solemnly
and with indifference to the stare of the passer-by surveying
them through the brazen plate-glass window.
And then came the war. The war that spelled death and
destruction to millions. The war that brought a fortune to Jo
Hertz, and transformed him, overnight, from a baggy-kneed old
bachelor whose business was a failure to a prosperous
manufacturer whose only trouble was the shortage in hides for the
One Basket |
