| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Middlemarch by George Eliot: before him on the table, and giving it a sort of oratorical push.
"Then just listen to me. The more you say anything, the less I shall
believe it. The more you want me to do a thing, the more reason I
shall have for never doing it. Do you think I mean to forget your
kicking me when I was a lad, and eating all the best victual away
from me and my mother? Do you think I forget your always coming
home to sell and pocket everything, and going off again leaving us
in the lurch? I should be glad to see you whipped at the cart-tail.
My mother was a fool to you: she'd no right to give me a father-in-law,
and she's been punished for it. She shall have her weekly allowance
paid and no more: and that shall be stopped if you dare to come
Middlemarch |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton: across the church to the expectant neophytes.
Lansing, looking after her, wondered for half a moment whether
Mr. Beck were the object of this apparently unrequited
sentiment; then, with a queer start of introspection, abruptly
decided that, no, he certainly was not. But then--but then--.
Well, there was no use in following up such conjectures .... He
turned home-ward, wondering if the picnickers had already
reached Palazzo Vanderlyn.
They got back only in time for a late dinner, full of chaff and
laughter, and apparently still enchanted with each other's
society. Nelson Vanderlyn beamed on his wife, sent his daughter
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Duchess of Padua by Oscar Wilde: To gain thy love. [Leaps up.]
Bid me reach forth and pluck
Perilous honour from the lion's jaws,
And I will wrestle with the Nemean beast
On the bare desert! Fling to the cave of War
A gaud, a ribbon, a dead flower, something
That once has touched thee, and I'll bring it back
Though all the hosts of Christendom were there,
Inviolate again! ay, more than this,
Set me to scale the pallid white-faced cliffs
Of mighty England, and from that arrogant shield
|
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 Nada the Lily by H. Rider Haggard: "Let the fruit ripen before you pluck it, Nada," he answered. "If you
love me and will wed me, it is enough."
"I pray that it may not be more than enough," she said, stretching out
her hand to him. "Listen, Umslopogaas: ask my father here what were
the words I spoke to him many years ago, before I was a woman, when,
with my mother, Macropha, I left him to go among the Swazi people. It
was after you had been borne away by the lion, Umslopogaas, I told my
father that I would marry no man all my life, because I loved only
you, who were dead. My father reproached me, saying that I must not
speak thus of my brother, but it was my heart which spoke, and it
spoke truly; for see, Umslopogaas, you are no brother to me! I have
Nada the Lily |
