| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Whirligigs by O. Henry: Couldn't you tell it the first note you heard him sing?
All of his monkey flip-flops wouldn't have kept it
from me. Must you be deaf as well as blind? That's
why you couldn't act your part, child. Do you
love him or must he be a gorilla for the rest of his
days?"
Miss Carroll whirled around and caught Delmars
with a lightning glance of her eye. He came toward her,
melancholy.
"Did you hear, Mr. Delmars?" she asked, with a
catching breath.
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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: behaviour to me; and so deservedly dear as he is to his sister,
whatever anxiety she must feel on his behalf is natural and
amiable. I cannot but wonder, however, at her having any such
fears now, because, if he had at all cared about me, we must
have met, long ago. He knows of my being in town, I am
certain, from something she said herself; and yet it would seem,
by her manner of talking, as if she wanted to persuade herself
that he is really partial to Miss Darcy. I cannot understand it. If
I were not afraid of judging harshly, I should be almost tempted
to say that there is a strong appearance of duplicity in all this.
But I will endeavour to banish every painful thought, and think
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 The Princess by Alfred Tennyson: Till I struck out and shouted; the blade glanced,
I did but shear a feather, and dream and truth
Flowed from me; darkness closed me; and I fell.
Home they brought her warrior dead:
She nor swooned, nor uttered cry:
All her maidens, watching, said,
'She must weep or she will die.'
Then they praised him, soft and low,
Called him worthy to be loved,
Truest friend and noblest foe;
Yet she neither spoke nor moved.
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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 Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: having no true emotion, we must have false emotions dressed up for
us to play with, not innocently, as children with dolls, but
guiltily and darkly, as the idolatrous Jews with their pictures on
cavern walls, which men had to dig to detect. The justice we do not
execute, we mimic in the novel and on the stage; for the beauty we
destroy in nature, we substitute the metamorphosis of the pantomime,
and (the human nature of us imperatively requiring awe and sorrow of
SOME kind) for the noble grief we should have borne with our
fellows, and the pure tears we should have wept with them, we gloat
over the pathos of the police court, and gather the night-dew of the
grave.
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