| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Arrow of Gold by Joseph Conrad: the simple, don't know any longer how to trust each other."
"Don't we? Then why don't you trust him? You are dying to do so,
don't you know?"
She dropped her chin on her breast and from under her straight
eyebrows the deep blue eyes remained fixed on me, impersonally, as
if without thought.
"What have you been doing since you left me yesterday?" she asked.
"The first thing I remember I abused your sister horribly this
morning."
"And how did she take it?"
"Like a warm shower in spring. She drank it all in and unfolded
The Arrow of Gold |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Figure in the Carpet by Henry James: "If it were you'd let me have it - oh yes, in common humanity. But
I believe you. I see - I see!" I went on, conscious, with the full
turn of the wheel, of my great delusion, my false view of the poor
man's attitude. What I saw, though I couldn't say it, was that his
wife hadn't thought him worth enlightening. This struck me as
strange for a woman who had thought him worth marrying. At last I
explained it by the reflexion that she couldn't possibly have
married him for his understanding. She had married him for
something else.
He was to some extent enlightened now, but he was even more
astonished, more disconcerted: he took a moment to compare my
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Warlord of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: since the sith is almost extinct.
"Only occasionally do we now run upon one. Of old, however,
Kaol was overrun with the frightful monsters that often came in
herds of twenty or thirty, darting down from above into our cities
and carrying away women, children, and even warriors."
As he spoke I had been wondering just how much I might safely tell
this man of the mission which brought me to his land, but his next
words anticipated the broaching of the subject on my part, and
rendered me thankful that I had not spoken too soon.
The Warlord of Mars |
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 Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare: did tast the Worme-wood on the nipple of my Dugge,
and felt it bitter, pretty foole, to see it teachie, and fall out
with the Dugge, Shake quoth the Doue-house, 'twas no
neede I trow to bid mee trudge, and since that time it is
a eleuen yeares, for then she could stand alone, nay bi'th'
roode she could haue runne, & wadled all about: for euen
the day before she broke her brow, & then my Husband
God be with his soule, a was a merrie man, tooke vp the
Child, yea quoth hee, doest thou fall vpon thy face? thou
wilt fall backeward when thou hast more wit, wilt thou
not Iule? And by my holy-dam, the pretty wretch lefte
Romeo and Juliet |
