| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Bronte Sisters: ever wished to do, I most sincerely thank you: for all the evil
you have done me, and all you would have done, I pray God to pardon
you, and make you of a better mind.' Here the door was thrown
open, and Messrs. Huntingdon and Hattersley appeared without. The
latter remained in the hall, busy with his ramrod and his gun; the
former walked in, and stood with his back to the fire, surveying
Mr. Hargrave and me, particularly the former, with a smile of
insupportable meaning, accompanied as it was by the impudence of
his brazen brow, and the sly, malicious, twinkle of his eye.
'Well, sir?' said Hargrave, interrogatively, and with the air of
one prepared to stand on the defensive.
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Coxon Fund by Henry James: with only four hundred a year. This explanation indeed didn't
wholly content me, not even when I learned that her mourning had a
double cause--learned that poor Mr. Anvoy, giving way altogether,
buried under the ruins of his fortune and leaving next to nothing,
had died a few weeks before.
"So she has come out to marry George Gravener?" I commented.
"Wouldn't it have been prettier of him to have saved her the
trouble?"
"Hasn't the House just met?" Adelaide replied. "And for Mr.
Gravener the House--!" Then she added: "I gather that her having
come is exactly a sign that the marriage is a little shaky. If it
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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 Wheels of Chance by H. G. Wells: satirical efforts of the apprentice, but his mind was too full of
the projected Tour to admit any petty delicacies of dignity. He
left the supper table early, so that he might put in a good hour
at the desperate gymnastics up the Roehampton Road before it
would be time to come back for locking up. When the gas was
turned off for the night he was sitting on the edge of his bed,
rubbing arnica into his knee--a new and very big place--and
studying a Road Map of the South of England. Briggs of the
"dresses," who shared the room with him, was sitting up in bed
and trying to smoke in the dark. Briggs had never been on a cycle
in his life, but he felt Hoopdriver's inexperience and offered
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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 A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay: he desired, within a few yards of the current, which at that point
made a sharp bend from the east. He shouted out some words to his
wife and Maskull. Gleameil kissed her children convulsively, and
broke down a little. The eldest boy bit his lip till it bled, and
tears glistened in his eyes; but the younger children stared wide-
eyed, and displayed no emotion.
Gleameil now walked into the sea, followed by Maskull. The water
covered first their ankles, then their knees, but when it came as
high as their waists, they were close on the raft. Polecrab let
himself down into the water, and assisted his wife to climb over the
side. When she was up, she bent down and kissed him. No words were
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