| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Secret Places of the Heart by H. G. Wells: Their ways of thought harmonized. They talked at first
chiefly about the history of the world and the extraordinary
situation of aimlessness in a phase of ruin to which the
Great War had brought all Europe, if not all mankind. The
world excited them both in the same way; as a crisis in which
they were called upon to do something--they did not yet
clearly know what. Into this topic they peered as into some
deep pool, side by side, and in it they saw each other
reflected.
The visit to Avebury had been a great success. It had been a
perfect springtime day, and the little inn had been delighted
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Life in the Iron-Mills by Rebecca Davis: Shall I go over the history of the hours of that night? how the
man wandered from one to another of his old haunts, with a half-
consciousness of bidding them farewell,--lanes and alleys and
back-yards where the mill-hands lodged,--noting, with a new
eagerness, the filth and drunkenness, the pig-pens, the ash-
heaps covered with potato-skins, the bloated, pimpled women at
the doors, with a new disgust, a new sense of sudden triumph,
and, under all, a new, vague dread, unknown before, smothered
down, kept under, but still there? It left him but once during
the night, when, for the second time in his life, he entered a
church. It was a sombre Gothic pile, where the stained light
Life in the Iron-Mills |
| 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: sat before me whipped with his own lash. His temerity had been
stupid and obstinate; I could not regret his punishment.
I kept him waiting long enough to think all this, and then I
replied, 'I have not the least means of knowing.'
I can not say what he expected, but he squared his shoulders as if
he had received a blow and might receive another. Then he looked at
me with a flash of the old indignation. 'You are not near enough to
her for that!' he exclaimed.
'I am not near enough to her for that.'
Silence fell between us. A crow perched upon an opened venetian and
cawed lustily. For years afterward I never heard a crow caw without
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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 Confessio Amantis by John Gower: And with the clothes of hire love
Sche helede al hire bed aboute;
And he, which hadde of nothing doute,
Hire wympel wond aboute his cheke,
Hire kertell and hire mantel eke 6890
Abrod upon his bed he spredde.
And thus thei slepen bothe abedde;
And what of travail, what of wyn,
The servantz lich to drunke Swyn
Begunne forto route faste.
This Faunus, which his Stelthe caste,
Confessio Amantis |
