| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy: 'I suppose you are quite competent?' he said.
'Quite,' said the young man, colouring slightly.
'You are very young, I fancy--I should say you are not more than
nineteen?'
I am nearly twenty-one.'
'Exactly half my age; I am forty-two.'
'By the way,' said Mr. Swancourt, after some conversation, 'you
said your whole name was Stephen Fitzmaurice, and that your
grandfather came originally from Caxbury. Since I have been
speaking, it has occurred to me that I know something of you. You
belong to a well-known ancient county family--not ordinary Smiths
A Pair of Blue Eyes |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe: buried, the parish children she kept were immediately removed
by the church-wardens; the school was at an end, and the
children of it had no more to do but just stay at home till they
were sent somewhere else; and as for what she left, her daughter,
a married woman with six or seven children, came and swept
it all away at once, and removing the goods, they had no more
to say to me than to jest with me, and tell me that the little
gentlewoman might set up for herself if she pleased.
I was frighted out of my wits almost, and knew not what to do,
for I was, as it were, turned out of doors to the wide world, and
that which was still worse, the old honest woman had two-and-
Moll Flanders |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells: Nevertheless there came a residuum of expostulations. Her
brother Roddy, who was in the motor line, came to expostulate;
her sister Alice wrote. And Mr. Manning called.
Her sister Alice seemed to have developed a religious sense away
there in Yorkshire, and made appeals that had no meaning for Ann
Veronica's mind. She exhorted Ann Veronica not to become one of
"those unsexed intellectuals, neither man nor woman."
Ann Veronica meditated over that phrase. "That's HIM," said Ann
Veronica, in sound, idiomatic English. "Poor old Alice!"
Her brother Roddy came to her and demanded tea, and asked her to
state a case. "Bit thick on the old man, isn't it?" said Roddy,
|
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 Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane: The vast crowd had an air throughout of having just quitted
labor. Men with calloused hands and attired in garments that
showed the wear of an endless trudge for a living, smoked their
pipes contentedly and spent five, ten, or perhaps fifteen cents for
beer. There was a mere sprinkling of kid-gloved men who smoked
cigars purchased elsewhere. The great body of the crowd was
composed of people who showed that all day they strove with their
hands. Quiet Germans, with maybe their wives and two or three
children, sat listening to the music, with the expressions of happy
cows. An occasional party of sailors from a war-ship, their faces
pictures of sturdy health, spent the earlier hours of the evening
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets |
