| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton: brown to represent an awning) two large targets had
been placed against a background of shrubbery. On the
other side of the lawn, facing the targets, was pitched a
real tent, with benches and garden-seats about it. A
number of ladies in summer dresses and gentlemen in
grey frock-coats and tall hats stood on the lawn or sat
upon the benches; and every now and then a slender
girl in starched muslin would step from the tent,
bow in hand, and speed her shaft at one of the targets,
while the spectators interrupted their talk to watch
the result.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy: Often at this hour after dusk he would enter the silent Close,
and stand opposite the house that contained Sue, and watch
the shadows of the girls' heads passing to and fro upon the blinds,
and wish he had nothing else to do but to sit reading and
learning all day what many of the thoughtless inmates despised.
But to-night, having finished tea and brushed himself up,
he was deep in the perusal of the Twenty-ninth Volume of Pusey's
Library of the Fathers, a set of books which he had purchased
of a second-hand dealer at a price that seemed to him
to be one of miraculous cheapness for that invaluable work.
He fancied he heard something rattle lightly against his window;
Jude the Obscure |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence: green stems, all so simple, and somehow so wicked-looking, lay at
her feet. She went on her knees before it, her dark curls dropping.
He saw her crouched voluptuously before his work, and his heart
beat quickly. Suddenly she looked up at him.
"Why does it seem cruel?" she asked.
"What?"
"There seems a feeling of cruelty about it," she said.
"It's jolly good, whether or not," he replied, folding up
his work with a lover's hands.
She rose slowly, pondering.
"And what will you do with it?" she asked.
Sons and Lovers |
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 Enoch Arden, &c. by Alfred Tennyson: Were feeble, so that falling prone he dug
His fingers into the wet earth, and pray'd.
`Too hard to bear! why did they take me hence?
O God Almighty, blessed Saviour, Thou
That didst uphold me on my lonely isle,
Uphold me, Father, in my loneliness
A little longer! aid me, give me strength
Not to tell her, never to let her know.
Help me no to break in upon her peace.
My children too! must I not speak to these?
They know me not. I should betray myself.
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