| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Wheels of Chance by H. G. Wells: courage being high with meat and mustard, to the door, intending
to stand, with his legs wide apart and his hands deep in his
pockets, and stare boldly across the road. But just then the
other man in brown appeared in the gateway of the Golden Dragon
yard--it is one of those delightful inns that date from the
coaching days--wheeling his punctured machine. He was taking it
to Flambeau's, the repairer's. He looked up and saw Hoopdriver,
stared for a minute, and then scowled darkly.
But Hoopdriver remained stoutly in the doorway until the other
man in brown had disappeared into Flambeau's. Then he glanced
momentarily at the Golden Dragon, puckered his mouth into a
|
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: on any account whatever, and all the men that I had conversed
with were of so good reputation that I had not given the least
reflection by conversing with them; nor did any of them seem
to think there was room for a wicked correspondence, if they
had any of them offered it; yet there was one gentleman, as
above, who always singled me out for the diversion of my
company, as he called it, which, as he was pleased to say, was
very agreeable to him, but at that time there was no more in it.
I had many melancholy hours at the Bath after the company
was gone; for though I went to Bristol sometime for the
disposing my effects, and for recruits of money, yet I chose to
Moll Flanders |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Adventure by Jack London: were overhauled by the boss-boys.
A wealth of loot was recovered. There were fully a dozen cane-
knives--big hacking weapons with razor-edges, capable of
decapitating a man at a stroke. Towels, sheets, shirts, and
slippers, along with toothbrushes, wisp-brooms, soap, the missing
billiard ball, and all the lost and forgotten trifles of many
months, came to light. But most astonishing was the quantity of
ammunition-cartridges for Lee-Metfords, for Winchesters and
Marlins, for revolvers from thirty-two calibre to forty-five, shot-
gun cartridges, Joan's two boxes of thirty-eight, cartridges of
prodigious bore for the ancient Sniders of Malaita, flasks of black
|
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 Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw: for himself. There is nothing that marks the born dramatist more
unmistakably than this discovery of comedy in his own misfortunes
almost in proportion to the pathos with which the ordinary man
announces their tragedy. I cannot for the life of me see the broken
heart in Shakespear's latest works. "Hark, hark! the lark at heaven's
gate sings" is not the lyric of a broken man; nor is Cloten's comment
that if Imogen does not appreciate it, "it is a vice in her ears which
horse hairs, and cats' guts, and the voice of unpaved eunuch to boot,
can never amend," the sally of a saddened one. Is it not clear that
to the last there was in Shakespear an incorrigible divine levity, an
inexhaustible joy that derided sorrow? Think of the poor Dark Lady
|
