| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: Her next conscious motion was that of starting to her feet, the
letter falling to them as she rose, while she held out to her
husband a long newspaper clipping.
"Ned! What's this? What does it mean?"
He had risen at the same instant, almost as if hearing her cry
before she uttered it; and for a perceptible space of time he and
she studied each other, like adversaries watching for an
advantage, across the space between her chair and his desk.
"What's what? You fairly made me jump!" Boyne said at length,
moving toward her with a sudden, half-exasperated laugh. The
shadow of apprehension was on his face again, not now a look of
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Bronte Sisters: He doesn't say much, to be sure, but his very silence implies more
than all the others' words, and the less he says, the more he
thinks - and this is Hargrave's missive. He is particularly
grieved at me, because, forsooth he had fallen in love with you
from his sister's reports, and meant to have married you himself,
as soon as he had sown his wild oats.'
'I'm vastly obliged to him,' observed I.
'And so am I,' said he. 'And look at this. This is Hattersley's -
every page stuffed full of railing accusations, bitter curses, and
lamentable complaints, ending up with swearing that he'll get
married himself in revenge: he'll throw himself away on the first
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe: determinate force of evil; but still there was a thrill and commotion
of the dark, inner world, produced by every word, or prayer, or
hymn, that reacted in superstitious dread.
The influence of Cassy over him was of a strange and singular kind.
He was her owner, her tyrant and tormentor. She was, as he knew,
wholly, and without any possibility of help or redress, in his
hands; and yet so it is, that the most brutal man cannot live
in constant association with a strong female influence, and not be
greatly controlled by it. When he first bought her, she was, as
she said, a woman delicately bred; and then he crushed her, without
scruple, beneath the foot of his brutality. But, as time, and
Uncle Tom's Cabin |
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 King Henry VI by William Shakespeare: There comes the ruin, there begins confusion.
[Exit.]
SCENE II. Before Bordeaux.
[Enter Talbot, with trump and drum.]
TALBOT.
Go to the gates of Bordeaux, trumpeter:
Summon their general unto the wall.
[Trumpet sounds. Enter General and others, aloft.]
English John Talbot, Captains, calls you forth,
Servant in arms to Harry King of England;
And thus he would: Open your city-gates,
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