| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Adieu by Honore de Balzac: surprise or intelligence. The air was stifling; the stone bench
glittered in the sunlight; the meadow exhaled to heaven those impish
vapors which dance and dart above the herbage like silvery dust; but
Genevieve seemed not to feel this all-consuming heat.
The colonel pressed the hand of the doctor violently in his own. Tears
rolled from his eyes along his manly cheeks, and fell to the earth at
the feet of his Stephanie.
"Monsieur," said the uncle, "for two years past, my heart is broken
day by day. Soon you will be like me. You may not always weep, but you
will always feel your sorrow."
The two men understood each other; and again, pressing each other's
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith: MARLOW. Joy, my dear George! I give you joy sincerely. And could I
prevail upon my little tyrant here to be less arbitrary, I should be
the happiest man alive, if you would return me the favour.
HASTINGS. (To MISS HARDCASTLE.) Come, madam, you are now driven to
the very last scene of all your contrivances. I know you like him, I'm
sure he loves you, and you must and shall have him.
HARDCASTLE. (Joining their hands.) And I say so too. And, Mr.
Marlow, if she makes as good a wife as she has a daughter, I don't
believe you'll ever repent your bargain. So now to supper. To-morrow
we shall gather all the poor of the parish about us, and the mistakes
of the night shall be crowned with a merry morning. So, boy, take her;
She Stoops to Conquer |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Time Machine by H. G. Wells: was subterranean. There were three circumstances in particular
which made me think that its rare emergence above ground was the
outcome of a long-continued underground habit. In the first
place, there was the bleached look common in most animals that
live largely in the dark--the white fish of the Kentucky caves,
for instance. Then, those large eyes, with that capacity for
reflecting light, are common features of nocturnal things--
witness the owl and the cat. And last of all, that evident
confusion in the sunshine, that hasty yet fumbling awkward flight
towards dark shadow, and that peculiar carriage of the head while
in the light--all reinforced the theory of an extreme
The Time Machine |
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 Odyssey by Homer: this that mine eyes have seen of all my travail in
searching out the paths of the sea.
'Now when we had escaped the Rocks and dread Charybdis and
Scylla, thereafter we soon came to the fair island of the
god; where were the goodly kine, broad of brow, and the
many brave flocks of Helios Hyperion. Then while as yet I
was in my black ship upon the deep, I heard the lowing of
the cattle being stalled and the bleating of the sheep, and
on my mind there fell the saying of the blind seer, Theban
Teiresias, and of Circe of Aia, who charged me very
straitly to shun the isle of Helios, the gladdener of the
The Odyssey |
