| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Mrs. Warren's Profession by George Bernard Shaw: you will: you will. No woman ever had luck with a mother's curse
on her.
VIVIE. I wish you wouldnt rant, mother. It only hardens me.
Come: I suppose I am the only young woman you ever had in your
power that you did good to. Dont spoil it all now.
MRS WARREN. Yes, Heaven forgive me, it's true; and you are the
only one that ever turned on me. Oh, the injustice of it! the
injustice! the injustice! I always wanted to be a good woman. I
tried honest work; and I was slave-driven until I cursed the day
I ever heard of honest work. I was a good mother; and because I
made my daughter a good woman she turns me out as if I were a
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Door in the Wall, et. al. by H. G. Wells: their soft fur, and caressed their round ears and the sensitive
corners under their ears, and played with them, and it was as
though they welcomed me home. There was a keen sense of
home-coming in my mind, and when presently a tall, fair girl
appeared in the pathway and came to meet me, smiling, and said
'Well?' to me, and lifted me, and kissed me, and put me down, and
led me by the hand, there was no amazement, but only an impression
of delightful rightness, of being reminded of happy things that had
in some strange way been overlooked. There were broad steps, I
remember, that came into view between spikes of delphinium, and up
these we went to a great avenue between very old and shady dark
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells: he came upon a stile, and, crossing it, followed a footpath
northeastward. He passed near several farmhouses and some
little places whose names he did not learn. He saw few
fugitives until, in a grass lane towards High Barnet, he hap-
pened upon two ladies who became his fellow travellers. He
came upon them just in time to save them.
He heard their screams, and, hurrying round the corner,
saw a couple of men struggling to drag them out of the little
pony-chaise in which they had been driving, while a third
with difficulty held the frightened pony's head. One of the
ladies, a short woman dressed in white, was simply screaming;
War of the Worlds |
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 The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy: pavement.
He watched her till she had vanished, and then went home.
When he got there he sat down in the fireless chimney corner
looking at the iron dogs, and the wood laid across them for
heating the morning kettle. A movement upstairs disturbed
him, and Henchard came down from his bedroom, where he
seemed to have been rummaging boxes.
"I wish," said Henchard, "you would do me a service, Jopp,
now--to-night, I mean, if you can. Leave this at Mrs.
Farfrae's for her. I should take it myself, of course, but
I don't wish to be seen there."
The Mayor of Casterbridge |
