| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy: he felt checked by the dread of incompetency just as she did--
from their peculiarities, perhaps, because they were unlike other people.
"We are horribly sensitive; that's really what's the matter
with us, Sue!" he declared.
"I fancy more are like us than we think!"
"Well, I don't know. The intention of the contract is good,
and right for many, no doubt; but in our case it may defeat
its own ends because we are the queer sort of people we are--
folk in whom domestic ties of a forced kind snuff out cordiality
and spontaneousness."
Sue still held that there was not much queer or exceptional in them:
Jude the Obscure |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dreams & Dust by Don Marquis: And golden-hearted, golden-crowned
Marsh Marigold!"
And when she came no more, her creek
Would not believe, but bade us seek
Hither, yon, and to and fro--
Everywhere that children go
When the Spring
Is on the wing
And the winds of April blow--
"I will never think her dead;
"She will come again!" it said;
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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 The Pool in the Desert by Sara Jeanette Duncan: convictions plainly out, how far an impulse of reparation for a
misfortune with which he had nothing to do might carry a man.
I began to watch the affair with an interest which even to me seemed
queer. It was not detached, but it was semi-detached, and, of
course, on the side for which I seem, in this history, to be
perpetually apologizing. With certain limitations it didn't matter
an atom whom Cecily married. So that he was sound and decent, with
reasonable prospects, her simple requirements and ours for her would
be quite met. There was the ghost of a consolation in that; one
needn't be anxious or exacting.
I could predict with a certain amount of confidence that in her
|
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 Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad: that I overheard two men in a sheltered nook of the main deck
exchanging these informing remarks. Said one:
"Should think 'twas time some of them light sails were coming off
her."
And the other, an older man, uttered grumpily: "No fear! not while
the chief mate's on deck. He's that deaf he can't tell how much
wind there is."
And, indeed, poor P-, quite young, and a smart seaman, was very
hard of hearing. At the same time, he had the name of being the
very devil of a fellow for carrying on sail on a ship. He was
wonderfully clever at concealing his deafness, and, as to carrying
The Mirror of the Sea |
