| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: which we vegetate; but if he breathes the air of heaven before the
time when we may be permitted to do so, why should we desire to have
him down among us? I am content to hear his heart beat, and all my
happiness is to be with him. Is he not wholly mine? In three years,
twice at intervals he was himself for a few days; once in Switzerland,
where we went, and once in an island off the wilds of Brittany, where
we took some sea-baths. I have twice been very happy! I can live on
memory."
"But do you write down the things he says?" I asked.
"Why should I?" said she.
I was silent; human knowledge was indeed as nothing in this woman's
Louis Lambert |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Warlord of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: before sat together during all the history of ancient Mars.
As I entered, silence fell upon the great concourse of people that
packed the auditorium. Then Tardos Mors arose.
"John Carter," he said in his deep, martial voice, "take your place
upon the Pedestal of Truth, for you are to be tried by a fair and
impartial tribunal of your fellow-men."
With level eye and high-held head I did as he bade, and as I glanced
about that circle of faces that a moment before I could have sworn
The Warlord of Mars |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Twelve Stories and a Dream by H. G. Wells: it was, in a manner of speaking, all me."
I forbore to jump upon this allusion, and so he presently threw out
another, and in a little while he was making it as plain as daylight
that the one thing he wanted to talk about now was this Fairyland
adventure he had sat tight upon for so long. You see, I'd done
the trick with him, and from being just another half-incredulous,
would-be facetious stranger, I had, by all my wealth of shameless
self-exposure, become the possible confidant. He had been bitten
by the desire to show that he, too, had lived and felt many things,
and the fever was upon him.
He was certainly confoundedly allusive at first, and my eagerness
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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 Night and Day by Virginia Woolf: to, if pray she did, at any rate she recovered her dignity in a
singular way and faced her niece.
"Married love," she said slowly and with emphasis upon every word, "is
the most sacred of all loves. The love of husband and wife is the most
holy we know. That is the lesson Mamma's children learnt from her;
that is what they can never forget. I have tried to speak as she would
have wished her daughter to speak. You are her grandchild."
Katharine seemed to judge this defence upon its merits, and then to
convict it of falsity.
"I don't see that there is any excuse for your behavior," she said.
At these words Mrs. Milvain rose and stood for a moment beside her
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