| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Emma by Jane Austen: too kind! Dear, Miss Woodhouse, I was absolutely miserable!
By that time, it was beginning to hold up, and I was determined
that nothing should stop me from getting away--and then--only think!--
I found he was coming up towards me too--slowly you know, and as
if he did not quite know what to do; and so he came and spoke,
and I answered--and I stood for a minute, feeling dreadfully,
you know, one can't tell how; and then I took courage, and said it
did not rain, and I must go; and so off I set; and I had not got
three yards from the door, when he came after me, only to say,
if I was going to Hartfield, he thought I had much better go round
by Mr. Cole's stables, for I should find the near way quite floated
Emma |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Human Drift by Jack London: turned your back and I sang.
FITZSIMMONS. [Who has been laughing incredulously, now becomes
suspicious.] Look here, kid, I think you are an impostor. You
are not Harry Jones at all.
MAUD. I am, too.
FITZSIMMONS. I don't believe it. He was heavier than you.
MAUD. I had the fever last summer and lost a lot of weight.
FITZSIMMONS. You are the Harry Jones that got sousesd and had to
be put to bed?
MAUD. Y-e-s.
FITZSIMMONS. There is one thing I remember very distinctly.
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll: "As short as short! "Sylvie echoed.
"And one day when we was in Outland, oo know--before we came to
Fairyland me and Sylvie took him a big Crocodile. And he shortened it
up for us. And it did look so funny! And it kept looking round, and
saying 'wherever is the rest of me got to?' And then its eyes looked
unhappy--"
"Not both its eyes," Sylvie interrupted.
"Course not!" said the little fellow. "Only the eye that couldn't see
wherever the rest of it had got to. But the eye that could see
wherever--"
"How short was the crocodile?" I asked, as the story was getting a
Sylvie and Bruno |
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 Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: The bones of the slain, men say, whitened the place for fifty years
to come.
And remember, that on the same day on which that fight befell--
September 27, 1066--William, Duke of Normandy, with all his French-
speaking Norsemen, was sailing across the British Channel, under the
protection of a banner consecrated by the Pope, to conquer that
England which the Norse-speaking Normans could not conquer.
And now King Harold showed himself a man. He turned at once from
the North of England to the South. He raised the folk of the
Southern, as he had raised those of the Central and Northern shires;
and in sixteen days--after a march which in those times was a
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