| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Faith of Men by Jack London: brute he brought into the post, playing that it was the new man
sent by Prentiss. He strove to make it sleep decently under
blankets at nights and to sit at table and eat as a man should; but
the beast, mere domesticated wolf that it was, rebelled, and sought
out dark corners and snarled and bit him in the leg, and was
finally beaten and driven forth.
Then the trick of personification seized upon Neil Bonner and
mastered him. All the forces of his environment metamorphosed into
living, breathing entities and came to live with him. He recreated
the primitive pantheon; reared an altar to the sun and burned
candle fat and bacon grease thereon; and in the unfenced yard, by
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: give her. Stay, stay, I will go myself. Ring the bell, Kitty, for
Hill. I will put on my things in a moment. My dear, dear Lydia!
How merry we shall be together when we meet!"
Her eldest daughter endeavoured to give some relief to the
violence of these transports, by leading her thoughts to the
obligations which Mr. Gardiner's behaviour laid them all under.
"For we must attribute this happy conclusion," she added, "in a
great measure to his kindness. We are persuaded that he has
pledged himself to assist Mr. Wickham with money."
"Well," cried her mother, "it is all very right; who should do it
but her own uncle? If he had not had a family of his own, I and
Pride and Prejudice |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Letters of Two Brides by Honore de Balzac: right, and we walked on--still in silence. The few steps we thus took
might be reckoned to me for a hundred years of purgatory. A swarm of
thoughts beset me as I walked, now seeming to take visible form in
tongues of fire before my eyes, now assailing my mind, each with its
own poisoned dart. When the groom and the horses were far away, I
stopped Gaston, and, looking him in the face, said, as I pointed, with
a gesture that you should have seen, to the fatal letter still in his
right hand:
"May I read it?"
He gave it to me. I opened it and found a letter from Nathan, the
dramatic author, informing Gaston that a play of his had been
|
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 Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens: had been lulled into a kind of doze by his regular pace; but his
stopping roused him; and then he became aware that two men were in
conversation under the colonnade, and very near the door of his
cell.
How long they had been talking there, he could not tell, for he had
fallen into an unconsciousness of his real position, and when the
footsteps ceased, was answering aloud some question which seemed to
have been put to him by Hugh in the stable, though of the fancied
purport, either of question or reply, notwithstanding that he awoke
with the latter on his lips, he had no recollection whatever. The
first words that reached his ears, were these:
Barnaby Rudge |
