| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: religious enthusiasm through the ages, the flagellations and starvations in
endless nunneries and monasteries, have never been able to extirpate nor
seriously to weaken for one moment the master dominance of this emotion;
that the lowest and most brutal ignorance, and the highest intellectual
culture leave mankind, equally, though in different forms, amenable to its
mastery; that, whether in the brutal guffaw of sex laughter which rings
across the drinking bars of our modern cities, and rises from the
comfortable armchairs in fashionable clubs; or in the poet's dreams, and
the noblest conjugal relations of men and women linked together for life,
it plays still today on earth the vast part it played when hoary monsters
ploughed after each other through Silurian slime, and that still it forms
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Oakdale Affair by Edgar Rice Burroughs: tion."
"Cheese it," The General advised his companion; and
the two removed themselves to the opposite side of the
apartment, where they whispered, grumblingly, to one
another.
The girl, the boy, and Bridge waited as patiently as
they could for the coming of the dawn, talking of the
events of the night and planning against the future.
Bridge advised the girl to return at once to her father;
but this she resolutely refused to do, admitting with ut-
most candor that she lacked the courage to face her
The Oakdale Affair |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs: and--it would take them away from Jane Porter also.
"I say, old man," cried Clayton, "I haven't had a chance to
thank you for all you've done for us. It seems as though you
had your hands full saving our lives in Africa and here.
"I'm awfully glad you came on here. We must get better
acquainted. I often thought about you, you know, and the
remarkable circumstances of your environment.
"If it's any of my business, how the devil did you ever get
into that bally jungle?"
"I was born there," said Tarzan, quietly. "My mother was
an Ape, and of course she couldn't tell me much about it.
Tarzan of the Apes |
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 The Chouans by Honore de Balzac: enemies, and won her the flattering murmur which escaped their lips.
Two or three men, whose outward appearance seemed to denote the habits
of polite society and the gallantry acquired in courts, came towards
her; but her propriety of demeanor forced them to respect her, and
none dared speak to her; so that, instead of being herself arraigned
by the company, it was she who appeared to judge of them. These chiefs
of a war undertaken for God and the king bore very little resemblance
to the portraits her fancy had drawn of them. The struggle, really
great in itself, shrank to mean proportions as she observed these
provincial noblemen, all, with one or two vigorous exceptions, devoid
of significance and virility. Having made to herself a poem of such
The Chouans |
