| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Four Arthurian Romances by Chretien DeTroyes: desire that my sweetheart be here all alone, and that no one
shall know of it excepting me and you and her." John makes
answer: "I thank you, sire. Now we have been here long enough,
and as we have nothing more to do, let us return." "That is
right," says Cliges, "let us be gone." Then they go away, and
leave the tower. Upon their return they hear every one in the
city saying to his neighbour: "Don't you know the marvellous news
about my lady, the empress? May the Holy Spirit give her health
-- the gentle and prudent lady; for she lies sick of a grievous
malady."
(Vv. 5663-5698.) When Cliges heard this talk he went in haste to
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Research Magnificent by H. G. Wells: of information and compliments before her. Benham dropped behind,
went astray and was presently recovered dreaming in the great
cloister. The guide showed them over two of the cells that opened
thereupon, each a delightful house for a solitary, bookish and
clean, and each with a little secret walled garden of its own. He
was covertly tipped against all regulations and departed regretfulry
with a beaming dismissal from Amanda. She found Benham wondering
why the Carthusians had failed to produce anything better in the
world than a liqueur. "One might have imagined that men would have
done something in this beautiful quiet; that there would have come
thought from here or will from here."
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy: aware; no trace of such surroundings remained. The
vast porches at the sides, lofty enough to admit a waggon
laden to its highest with corn in the sheaf, were spanned
by heavy-pointed arches of stone, broadly and boldly cut,
whose very simplicity was the origin of a grandeur not
apparent in erections where more ornament has been
attempted. The dusky, filmed, chestnut roof, braced
and tied in by huge collars, curves, and diagonals, was
far nobler in design, because more wealthy in material,
than nine-tenths of those in our modern churches.
Along each side wall was a range of striding buttresses,
Far From the Madding Crowd |
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 The American by Henry James: and thumb. As a Frenchman--quite apart from Newman's napoleons--M. Nioche
loved conversation, and even in his decay his urbanity had not grown rusty.
As a Frenchman, too, he could give a clear account of things, and--still as
a Frenchman--when his knowledge was at fault he could supply its lapses
with the most convenient and ingenious hypotheses. The little shrunken
financier was intensely delighted to have questions asked him, and he scraped
together information, by frugal processes, and took notes, in his little
greasy pocket-book, of incidents which might interest his munificent friend.
He read old almanacs at the book-stalls on the quays, and he began to
frequent another cafe, where more newspapers were taken and his postprandial
demitasse cost him a penny extra, and where he used to con the tattered
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