| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Dream Life and Real Life by Olive Schreiner: the river.
At last she came to the end of it, and stood for an instant. Before her
lay the plain, and the red farmhouse, so near, that if persons had been
walking there you might have seen them in the moonlight. She clasped her
hands. "Yes, I will tell them, I will tell them!" she said; "I am almost
there!" She ran forward again, then hesitated. She shaded her eyes from
the moonlight, and looked. Between her and the farmhouse there were three
figures moving over the low bushes.
In the sheeny moonlight you could see how they moved on, slowly and
furtively; the short one, and the one in light clothes, and the one in
dark.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Before Adam by Jack London: vaguely the eating of many green nuts, with soft shells
and milky kernels. And I remember most distinctly
suffering from a stomach-ache. It may have been caused
by the green nuts, and maybe by the lizards. I do not
know. But I do know that I was fortunate in not being
devoured during the several hours I was knotted up on
the ground with the colic.
CHAPTER V
My vision of the scene came abruptly, as I emerged from
the forest. I found myself on the edge of a large
clear space. On one side of this space rose up high
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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 Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte: "I dare you to any such experiment. Encroach, presume, and the game
is up."
"Is it, sir? You soon give in. How stern you look now! Your
eyebrows have become as thick as my finger, and your forehead
resembles what, in some very astonishing poetry, I once saw styled,
'a blue-piled thunderloft.' That will be your married look, sir, I
suppose?"
"If that will be YOUR married look, I, as a Christian, will soon
give up the notion of consorting with a mere sprite or salamander.
But what had you to ask, thing,--out with it?"
"There, you are less than civil now; and I like rudeness a great
Jane Eyre |
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 Exiles by Honore de Balzac: organs of sight. His eyes, no doubt, were seeing then the remoter
images which the grave has in store for us.
Never, perhaps, had this man presented so grand an aspect. A terrible
struggle was going on in his soul, and reacted on his outer frame;
strong man as he seemed to be, he bent as a reed bows under the breeze
that comes before a storm. Godefroid stood motionless, speechless,
spellbound; some inexplicable force nailed him to the floor; and, as
happens when our attention takes us out of ourselves while watching a
fire or a battle, he was wholly unconscious of his body.
"Shall I tell you the fate to which you were hastening, poor angel of
love? Listen! It has been given to me to see immeasurable space,
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