| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell: disappointing, for she had little opportunity for the long quiet
talks with her mother to which she looked forward while in
Atlanta, no time to sit by Ellen while she sewed, smelling the
faint fragrance of lemon verbena sachet as her skirts rustled,
feeling her soft hands on her cheek in a gentle caress.
Ellen was thin and preoccupied now and on her feet from morning
until long after the plantation was asleep. The demands of the
Confederate commissary were growing heavier by the month, and hers
was the task of making Tara produce. Even Gerald was busy, for
the first time in many years, for he could get no overseer to take
Jonas Wilkerson's place and he was riding his own acres. With
Gone With the Wind |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey: train of thought hurdled the rising, crying protests of that
other self whose poise she had lost. It was not her Bishop who
eyed her in curious measurement. It was a man who tramped into
her presence without removing his hat, who had no greeting for
her, who had no semblance of courtesy. In looks, as in action, he
made her think of a bull stamping cross-grained into a corral.
She had heard of Bishop Dyer forgetting the minister in the fury
of a common man, and now she was to feel it. The glance by which
she measured him in turn momentarily veiled the divine in the
ordinary. He looked a rancher; he was booted, spurred, and
covered with dust; he carried a gun at his hip, and she
Riders of the Purple Sage |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Betty Zane by Zane Grey: theirs. Twenty feet above the white-capped wave which marked the fall, Betty
gave a strong forward pull on the paddle, a deep stroke which momentarily
retarded their progress even in that swift current, and then, a short backward
stroke, far under the stern of the canoe, and the little vessel turned
straight, almost in the middle of the course between the two rocks. As she
raised her paddle into the canoe and smiled at the fascinated young man, the
bow dipped, and with that peculiar downward movement, that swift, exhilarating
rush so dearly loved by canoeists, they shot down the smooth incline of water,
were lost for a moment in a white cloud of mist, and in another they coated
into a placid pool.
"Was not that delightful?" she asked, with just a little conscious pride
Betty Zane |
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 A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay: to a certain tree. At a convenient height in its trunk a hole had
been tapped and plugged. Polecrab removed the plug and put his mouth
to the aperture, sucking for quite a long time, like. a child at its
mother's breast. Maskull, watching him, imagined that he saw his
eyes growing brighter.
When his own turn came to drink, he found the juice of the tree
somewhat like coconut milk in flavour, but intoxicating. It was a
new sort of intoxication, however, for neither his will not his
emotions were excited, but only his intellect - and that only in a
certain way. His thoughts and images were not freed and loosened, but
on the contrary kept labouring and swelling painfully, until they
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