| 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: derived from tormenting her!'
'Mr. Heathcliff,' said I, 'this is the talk of a madman; your wife,
most likely, is convinced you are mad; and, for that reason, she
has borne with you hitherto: but now that you say she may go,
she'll doubtless avail herself of the permission. You are not so
bewitched, ma'am, are you, as to remain with him of your own
accord?'
'Take care, Ellen!' answered Isabella, her eyes sparkling irefully;
there was no misdoubting by their expression the full success of
her partner's endeavours to make himself detested. 'Don't put
faith in a single word he speaks. He's a lying fiend! a monster,
Wuthering Heights |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot: Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit 340
There is not even silence in the mountains
But dry sterile thunder without rain
There is not even solitude in the mountains
But red sullen faces sneer and snarl
From doors of mudcracked houses
If there were water
And no rock
If there were rock
And also water
And water
The Waste Land |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Egmont by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe: conquer, glows through the soul of the young hunter; where the warrior,
with rapid stride, assumes his inborn right to dominion over the world;
and, with terrible liberty, sweeps like a desolating hailstorm over the field
and grove, knowing no boundaries traced by the hand of man.
Thou art but a shadow, a dream of the happiness I so long possessed;
where has treacherous fate conducted thee? Did she deny thee to meet the
rapid stroke of never-shunned death, in the open face of day, only to
prepare for thee a foretaste of the grave, in the midst of this loathsome
corruption? How revolting its rank odour exhales from these damp stones!
Life stagnates, and my foot shrinks from the couch as from the grave.
Oh care, care! Thou who dost begin prematurely the work of murder,--
Egmont |
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 War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells: moment of the people running this way and that than a man
would of the confusion of ants in a nest against which his
foot has kicked. When, half suffocated, I raised my head
above water, the Martian's hood pointed at the batteries that
were still firing across the river, and as it advanced it swung
loose what must have been the generator of the Heat-Ray.
In another moment it was on the bank, and in a stride wad-
ing halfway across. The knees of its foremost legs bent at
the farther bank, and in another moment it had raised itself
to its full height again, close to the village of Shepperton.
Forthwith the six guns which, unknown to anyone on the
War of the Worlds |
