| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence: lifting its brown curled heads, like legions of young snakes with a new
secret to whisper to Eve. Clifford kept the chair going till he came to
the brow of the hill; Connie followed slowly behind. The oak-buds were
opening soft and brown. Everything came tenderly out of the old
hardness. Even the snaggy craggy oak-trees put out the softest young
leaves, spreading thin, brown little wings like young bat-wings in the
light. Why had men never any newness in them, any freshness to come
forth with! Stale men!
Clifford stopped the chair at the top of the rise and looked down. The
bluebells washed blue like flood-water over the broad riding, and lit
up the downhill with a warm blueness.
Lady Chatterley's Lover |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from God The Invisible King by H. G. Wells: the Heart invincible, to bring the former into a conception of love
and to vest the latter with the beauty of stars and flowers and the
dignity of inexorable justice. There could be no finer metaphor for
such a correlation than Fatherhood and Sonship. But the trouble is
that it seems impossible to most people to continue to regard the
relations of the Father to the Son as being simply a mystical
metaphor. Presently some materialistic bias swings them in a moment
of intellectual carelessness back to the idea of sexual filiation.
And it may further be suggested that the extreme aloofness and
inhumanity, which is logically necessary in the idea of a Creator
God, of an Infinite God, was the reason, so to speak, for the
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Walden by Henry David Thoreau: Apples ................... 0.25
Dried apple .............. 0.22
Sweet potatoes ........... 0.10
One pumpkin .............. 0.06
One watermelon ........... 0.02
Salt ..................... 0.03
Yes, I did eat $8.74, all told; but I should not thus unblushingly
publish my guilt, if I did not know that most of my readers were
equally guilty with myself, and that their deeds would look no
better in print. The next year I sometimes caught a mess of fish
for my dinner, and once I went so far as to slaughter a woodchuck
Walden |
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 Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy: for, to tell the truth, dear, owing to this fog, which
so disguises everything, I don't quite know where we
are myself. Now, if you will promise to wait beside the
horse while I walk through the bushes till I come to
some road or house, and ascertain exactly our
whereabouts, I'll deposit you here willingly. When I
come back I'll give you full directions, and if you
insist upon walking you may; or you may ride--at your
pleasure."
She accepted these terms, and slid off on the near
side, though not till he had stolen a cursory kiss.
Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman |
