| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald: "Oh staunch old heart who toiled so long for me, I waste my years
sailing along the sea"
Yet he had no sense of waste, no sense of the present hope that
waste implied. He felt that life had rejected him.
"Rosalind! Rosalind!" He poured the words softly into the
half-darkness until she seemed to permeate the room; the wet salt
breeze filled his hair with moisture, the rim of a moon seared
the sky and made the curtains dim and ghostly. He fell asleep.
When he awoke it was very late and quiet. The blanket had slipped
partly off his shoulders and he touched his skin to find it damp
and cold.
This Side of Paradise |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen: and, taking out some letters, said, with a most animated look,
"I must acknowledge myself infinitely obliged to any creature
who gives me such an opportunity of seeing you alone:
I have been wishing it more than you can have any idea.
Knowing as I do what your feelings as a sister are, I could
hardly have borne that any one in the house should share
with you in the first knowledge of the news I now bring.
He is made. Your brother is a lieutenant. I have
the infinite satisfaction of congratulating you on your
brother's promotion. Here are the letters which announce it,
this moment come to hand. You will, perhaps, like to see them."
Mansfield Park |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson: would glance in between the swirling wreaths. The dismal quarter
of Soho seen under these changing glimpses, with its muddy ways,
and slatternly passengers, and its lamps, which had never been
extinguished or had been kindled afresh to combat this mournful
reinvasion of darkness, seemed, in the lawyer's eyes, like a
district of some city in a nightmare. The thoughts of his mind,
besides, were of the gloomiest dye; and when he glanced at the
companion of his drive, he was conscious of some touch of that
terror of the law and the law's officers, which may at times
assail the most honest.
As the cab drew up before the address indicated, the fog
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde |
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 Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn: captain; "talk to her! Talk gumbo to her! ... I've no doubt this
child knows German very well, and Italian too,"--he added,
maliciously--"but not in the way you gentlemen pronounce it!"
Laroussel handed his rifle to a friend, crouched down before the
little girl, and looked into her face, and smiled. Her great
sweet orbs shone into his one moment, seriously, as if
searching; and then ... she returned his smile. It seemed to
touch something latent within the man, something rare; for his
whole expression changed; and there was a caress in his look and
voice none of the men could have believed possible--as he
exclaimed:--
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