| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The First Men In The Moon by H. G. Wells: had been near the sphere. But everywhere was a confusing sameness,
everywhere the aspiring bushes, the distending fungi, the dwindling snow
banks, steadily and inevitably changed. The sun scorched and stung, the
faintness of an unaccountable hunger mingled with our infinite perplexity.
And even as we stood there, confused and lost amidst unprecedented things,
we became aware for the first time of a sound upon the moon other than the
air of the growing plants, the faint sighing of the wind, or those that we
ourselves had made.
Boom. ... Boom. ... Boom.
It came from beneath our feet, a sound in the earth. We seemed to hear it
with our feet as much as with our ears. Its dull resonance was muffled by
The First Men In The Moon |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte: distinct, formal, mirthless. I stopped: the sound ceased, only for
an instant; it began again, louder: for at first, though distinct,
it was very low. It passed off in a clamorous peal that seemed to
wake an echo in every lonely chamber; though it originated but in
one, and I could have pointed out the door whence the accents
issued.
"Mrs. Fairfax!" I called out: for I now heard her descending the
great stairs. "Did you hear that loud laugh? Who is it?"
"Some of the servants, very likely," she answered: "perhaps Grace
Poole."
"Did you hear it?" I again inquired.
Jane Eyre |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling: "'He has gone to his own country," said he. "He rose
up in the night while we were beating out of that forest in
the mud, and said that he could see it behind the trees.
He leaped out on the mud, and did not answer when we
called; so we called no more. He left the Wise Iron, which
is all that I care for - and see, the Spirit still points
to the South."
'We were troubled for fear that the Wise Iron should
fail us now that its Yellow Man had gone, and when we
saw the Spirit still served us we grew afraid of too strong
winds, and of shoals, and of careless leaping fish, and of
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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 Fisherman's Luck by Henry van Dyke: savoury sauce which makes the Long Island turkey a fitter subject
for Thanksgiving.
But this brook of which I speak did none of these useful things. It
was absolutely out of business.
There was not a mill, nor a reservoir, nor a cranberry-bog, on all
its course of a short mile. The only profitable affair it ever
undertook was to fill a small ice-pond near its entrance into the
Great South Bay. You could hardly call this a very energetic
enterprise. It amounted to little more than a good-natured consent
to allow itself to be used by the winter for the making of ice, if
the winter happened to be cold enough. Even this passive industry
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