| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Lone Star Ranger by Zane Grey: physically, but in a dreadful state of mind.
First he hurried for the river. He could withstand the pangs of
hunger, but it was imperative to quench thirst. His wound made
him feverish, and therefore more than usually hot and thirsty.
Again he was refreshed. That morning he was hard put to it to
hold himself back from attempting to cross the river. If he
could find a light log it was within the bounds of possibility
that he might ford the shallow water and bars of quicksand. But
not yet! Wearily, doggedly he faced about toward the bluff.
All that day and all that night, all the next day and all the
next night, he stole like a hunted savage from river to bluff;
The Lone Star Ranger |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Chance by Joseph Conrad: out and walked up the road surrounded by a low cloud of dust raised
by the dog gyrating madly about their two figures progressing side
by side with rectitude and propriety, and (I don't know why) looking
to me as if they had annexed the whole country-side. Perhaps it was
that they had impressed me somehow with the sense of their
superiority. What superiority? Perhaps it consisted just in their
limitations. It was obvious that neither of them had carried away a
high opinion of me. But what affected me most was the indifference
of the Fyne dog. He used to precipitate himself at full speed and
with a frightful final upward spring upon my waistcoat, at least
once at each of our meetings. He had neglected that ceremony this
Chance |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: to feel desire for and tenderness to the man who begets him; and the man to
value and desire the woman and her offspring? Would not such a result
exceed, or at least equal, in its evil to humanity, anything which could
result from the degeneration and parasitism of woman? Would it not be
well, if there exist any possibility of this danger, that woman, however
conscious that she can perform social labour as nobly and successfully
under the new conditions of life as the old, should yet consciously, and
deliberately, with her eyes open, sink into a state of pure intellectual
torpor, with all its attendant evils, rather than face the more irreparable
loss which her development and the exercise of her gifts might entail?
Would it not be well she should deliberately determine, as the lesser of
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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 My Aunt Margaret's Mirror by Walter Scott: we have to the man for employing what is his own to his own
profit? Besides, I did speak to him, and he very readily and
civilly promised that if he found bones or monuments, they should
be carefully respected and reinstated; and what more could I ask?
So, the first stone they found bore the name of Margaret
Bothwell, 1585, and I have caused it to be laid carefully aside,
as I think it betokens death, and having served my namesake two
hundred years, it has just been cast up in time to do me the same
good turn. My house has been long put in order, as far as the
small earthly concerns require it; but who shall say that their
account with, Heaven is sufficiently revised?"
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