| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy: the more credit to your consciences, considering your reasons,
and you med ha' lived on, and made it all right at last.
After all, it concerned nobody but your own two selves."
"Richard says he'll have me back, and I'm bound to go!
If he had refused, it might not have been so much my duty to--
give up Jude. But--" She remained with her face in the bed-clothes,
and Mrs. Edlin left the room.
Phillotson in the interval had gone back to his friend Gillingham,
who still sat over the supper-table. They soon rose, and walked out
on the green to smoke awhile. A light was burning in Sue's room,
a shadow moving now and then across the blind.
Jude the Obscure |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela: you're set on staying, well--they've got a child, you know,
and I suppose you could drag it around. . . ."
When Demetrio returned, Camilla, weeping, told him
everything.
"Don't pay no attention to that crazy baggage. It's all
lies, lies!"
Since Demetrio did not go to Limon or remember his
wife again, Camilla grew very happy. War Paint had
merely stung herself, like a scorpion.
XI
Before dawn, they left for Tepatitlan. Their sil-
The Underdogs |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton: folding her close he whispered back through his kiss: "Not
there, then."
In her response to his embrace he felt the acquiescence of her
whole happy self in whatever future he decided on, if only it
gave them enough of such moments as this; and as they held each
other fast in silence his doubts and distrust began to seem like
a silly injustice.
"Let us stay here as long as ever Ellie will let us," he said,
as if the shadowy walls and shining floors were a magic boundary
drawn about his happiness.
She murmured her assent and stood up, stretching her sleepy arm
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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 Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: surely the speech of Englishmen is too often lacking in generous
ardour, the better part of the man too often withheld from the
social commerce, and the contact of mind with mind evaded as with
terror. A Scotch peasant will talk more liberally out of his own
experience. He will not put you by with conversational counters
and small jests; he will give you the best of himself, like one
interested in life and man's chief end. A Scotchman is vain,
interested in himself and others, eager for sympathy, setting forth
his thoughts and experience in the best light. The egoism of the
Englishman is self-contained. He does not seek to proselytise. He
takes no interest in Scotland or the Scotch, and, what is the
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