| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Passion in the Desert by Honore de Balzac: cudgel, was nearly three feet long. The head, large as that of a
lioness, was distinguished by a rare expression of refinement. The
cold cruelty of a tiger was dominant, it was true, but there was also
a vague resemblance to the face of a sensual woman. Indeed, the face
of this solitary queen had something of the gaiety of a drunken Nero:
she had satiated herself with blood, and she wanted to play.
The soldier tried if he might walk up and down, and the panther left
him free, contenting herself with following him with her eyes, less
like a faithful dog than a big Angora cat, observing everything and
every movement of her master.
When he looked around, he saw, by the spring, the remains of his
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart: fight. She was beaten, but the strange thing was that she did not
care. Only, she would not be pitied. As the days went on she
resented the pity that had kept her in ignorance for so long, and
had let her wear her heart on her sleeve; and she even wondered
sometimes whether the story of Dick's loss of memory had not been
false, evolved out of that pity and the desire to save her pain.
David sent for her, but she wrote him a little note, formal and
restrained. She would come in a day or two, but now she must get
her bearings. He was, to know that she was not angry, and felt it
all for the best, and she was very lovingly his, Elizabeth.
She knew now that she would eventually marry Wallie Sayre if only
The Breaking Point |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Animal Farm by George Orwell: England!--owned and operated by animals. Not one of them, not even the
youngest, not even the newcomers who had been brought from farms ten or
twenty miles away, ever ceased to marvel at that. And when they heard the
gun booming and saw the green flag fluttering at the masthead, their
hearts swelled with imperishable pride, and the talk turned always towards
the old heroic days, the expulsion of Jones, the writing of the Seven
Commandments, the great battles in which the human invaders had been
defeated. None of the old dreams had been abandoned. The Republic of the
Animals which Major had foretold, when the green fields of England should
be untrodden by human feet, was still believed in. Some day it was coming:
it might not be soon, it might not be with in the lifetime of any animal
Animal Farm |
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 Research Magnificent by H. G. Wells: they would spread out again and join and submerge him, presently in
the confederated darkness he could be stalked and seized and slain.
Yes, this he admitted was real fear. He had cracked his voice,
yelling as a child yells. And then he had become afraid of his own
voice. . . .
"Now this excess of fear in isolation, this comfort in a crowd, in
support and in a refuge, even when support or refuge is quite
illusory, is just exactly what one would expect of fear if one
believed it to be an instinct which has become a misfit. In the
ease of the soldier fear is so much a misfit that instead of saving
him for the most part it destroys him. Raw soldiers under fire
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