| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy: have always, thank God, been my children's friend and had their full
confidence," said she, repeating the mistake of so many parents who
imagine that their children have no secrets from them. "I know I shall
always be my daughters' first confidante, and that if Nicholas, with
his impulsive nature, does get into mischief (a boy can't help it), he
will all the same never be like those Petersburg young men."
"Yes, they are splendid, splendid youngsters," chimed in the
count, who always solved questions that seemed to him perplexing by
deciding that everything was splendid. "Just fancy: wants to be an
hussar. What's one to do, my dear?"
"What a charming creature your younger girl is," said the visitor;
War and Peace |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Bronte Sisters: me all the better too.
As I trotted along, however, chewing the cud of - bitter fancies, I
heard another horse at no great distance behind me; but I never
conjectured who the rider might be, or troubled my head about him,
till, on slackening my pace to ascend a gentle acclivity, or
rather, suffering my horse to slacken his pace into a lazy walk -
for, rapt in my own reflections, I was letting it jog on as
leisurely as it thought proper - I lost ground, and my fellow-
traveller overtook me. He accosted me by name, for it was no
stranger - it was Mr. Lawrence! Instinctively the fingers of my
whip-hand tingled, and grasped their charge with convulsive energy;
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Time Machine by H. G. Wells: `And on the heels of that came another thought. I looked at
the half-dozen little figures that were following me. Then, in a
flash, I perceived that all had the same form of costume, the
same soft hairless visage, and the same girlish rotundity of
limb. It may seem strange, perhaps, that I had not noticed this
before. But everything was so strange. Now, I saw the fact
plainly enough. In costume, and in all the differences of
texture and bearing that now mark off the sexes from each other,
these people of the future were alike. And the children seemed
to my eyes to be but the miniatures of their parents. I judged,
then, that the children of that time were extremely precocious,
The Time Machine |
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 Edition of The Ambassadors by Henry James: presence of it he wished still more to be--though as smoothly as
possible--deterrent and conclusive. He put her question by for
the moment; he told her more about Chad. "It would have been
impossible to meet me more than he did last night on the question
of the infamy of not sticking to her."
"Is that what you called it for him--'infamy'?"
"Oh rather! I described to him in detail the base creature he'd
be, and he quite agrees with me about it."
"So that it's really as if you had nailed him?"
"Quite really as if--! I told him I should curse him."
"Oh," she smiled, "you HAVE done it." And then having thought again:
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