| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy: from her little stool and left the room, overturning
the stool with her skirts as she went.
He sat on by the cheerful firelight thrown from a
bundle of green ash-sticks laid across the dogs; the
sticks snapped pleasantly, and hissed out bubbles of
sap from their ends. When she came back she was herself
again.
"Do you not think you are just a wee bit capricious,
fitful, Tess?" he said, good-humouredly, as he spread a
cushion for her on the stool, and seated himself in the
settle beside her. "I wanted to ask you something, and
Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Long Odds by H. Rider Haggard: have gone too, only I knew that somebody must look after the waggon, and
I did not like to leave either of the boys with it at night. I was in a
very bad temper, indeed, although I was pretty well used to these sort
of occurrences, and soothed myself by taking a rifle and going to kill
something. For a couple of hours I poked about without seeing anything
that I could get a shot at, but at last, just as I was again within
seventy yards of the waggon, I put up an old Impala ram from behind a
mimosa thorn. He ran straight for the waggon, and it was not till he
was passing within a few feet of it that I could get a decent shot at
him. Then I pulled, and caught him half-way down the spine. Over he
went, dead as a door-nail, and a pretty shot it was, though I ought not
Long Odds |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Message by Honore de Balzac: correspondence, carefully sealed by my friend of the day.
The Countess' chateau was some eight leagues beyond Moulins, and
then there was some distance to walk across country. So it was
not exactly an easy matter to deliver my message. For divers
reasons into which I need not enter, I had barely sufficient
money to take me to Moulins. However, my youthful enthusiasm
determined to hasten thither on foot as fast as possible. Bad
news travels swiftly, and I wished to be first at the chateau. I
asked for the shortest way, and hurried through the field paths
of the Bourbonnais, bearing, as it were, a dead man on my back.
The nearer I came to the Chateau de Montpersan, the more aghast I
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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 The Vision Splendid by William MacLeod Raine: no John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Athletics bore me. I can't sing. I
don't grind. But I'm in everything. Best frat. Won the oratorical
contest. Manager of the football team next season. President of
the Dramatic Club. Why?"
He did not wait for Jeff to guess the reason. "Because our set
runs things and I go after the honors."
"But a college ought to be a democracy," Jeff protested.
"Tommyrot! It's an aristocracy, that's what it is, just like the
little old world outside, an aristocracy of the survival of the
fittest. You get there if you're strong. You go to the wall if
you're weak. That's the law of life."
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