| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson: party threw down the yard and ran for it.
Then I looked round again into the deck-house. The whole place
was full of the smoke of my own firing, just as my ears seemed to
be burst with the noise of the shots. But there was Alan,
standing as before; only now his sword was running blood to the
hilt, and himself so swelled with triumph and fallen into so fine
an attitude, that he looked to be invincible. Right before him
on the floor was Mr. Shuan, on his hands and knees; the blood was
pouring from his mouth, and he was sinking slowly lower, with a
terrible, white face; and just as I looked, some of those from
behind caught hold of him by the heels and dragged him bodily out
Kidnapped |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner: two small beds against the wall. In one lay a yellow-haired child, with a
low forehead and a face of freckles; but the loving moonlight hid defects
here as elsewhere, and showed only the innocent face of a child in its
first sweet sleep.
The figure in the companion bed belonged of right to the moonlight, for it
was of quite elfin-like beauty. The child had dropped her cover on the
floor, and the moonlight looked in at the naked little limbs. Presently
she opened her eyes and looked at the moonlight that was bathing her.
"Em!" she called to the sleeper in the other bed; but received no answer.
Then she drew the cover from the floor, turned her pillow, and pulling the
sheet over her head, went to sleep again.
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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 Little Britain by Washington Irving: head; and being taken with his drugs, and associated in the
minds of his auditors with stuffed sea-monsters, bottled
serpents, and his own visage, which is a title-page of
tribulation, they have spread great gloom through the minds of
the people of Little Britain. They shake their heads whenever
they go by Bow Church, and observe, that they never expected
any good to come of taking down that steeple, which in old
times told nothing but glad tidings, as the history of
Whittington and his Cat bears witness.
The rival oracle of Little Britain is a substantial
cheesemonger, who lives in a fragment of one of the old family
|
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 Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell: widow and the orphan and the ignorant! But if you must steal,
Scarlett, why not steal from the rich and strong instead of the
poor and weak? From Robin Hood on down to now, that's been
considered highly moral."
"Because," said Scarlett shortly, "it's a sight easier and safer to
steal--as you call it--from the poor."
He laughed silently, his shoulders shaking.
"You're a fine honest rogue, Scarlett!"
A rogue! Queer that that term should hurt. She wasn't a rogue,
she told herself vehemently. At least, that wasn't what she wanted
to be. She wanted to be a great lady. For a moment her mind went
Gone With the Wind |
