| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Ebb-Tide by Stevenson & Osbourne: 'And then?' said the breathless captain.
'Shot,' said Attwater. 'They came to ground together.'
Herrick sprang to his feet with a shriek and an insensate
gesture.
'It was a murder,' he screamed. 'A cold-hearted, bloody-minded
murder! You monstrous being! Murderer and hypocrite--murderer and
hypocrite--murderer and hypocrite--' he repeated, and his tongue
stumbled among the words.
The captain was by him in a moment. 'Herrick!' he cried, 'behave
yourself! Here, don't be a blame' fool!'
Herrick struggled in his embrace like a frantic child, and
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence: on the stand at his bedside. No one had been with him.
"Why, my son!" said the mother bravely.
He did not answer. He looked at her, but did not see her.
Then he began to say, in a dull voice, as if repeating a letter
from dictation: "Owing to a leakage in the hold of this vessel,
the sugar had set, and become converted into rock. It needed hacking---"
He was quite unconscious. It had been his business to examine
some such cargo of sugar in the Port of London.
"How long has he been like this?" the mother asked the landlady.
"He got home at six o'clock on Monday morning, and he seemed
to sleep all day; then in the night we heard him talking, and this
Sons and Lovers |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Massimilla Doni by Honore de Balzac: "And she is a happy woman!" added the Duchess, looking at Emilio.
"He escapes and flies to command the Dalmatians, to conquer the
Illyrian coast for his beloved Venice. His glory wins him forgiveness,
and he enjoys a life of domestic happiness,--a home, a winter evening,
a young wife and charming children, who pray to San Marco under the
care of an old nurse. Yes, for three francs' worth of opium he
furnishes our empty arsenal, he watches convoys of merchandise coming
in, going to the four quarters of the world. The forces of modern
industry no longer reign in London, but in his own Venice, where the
hanging gardens of Semiramis, the Temple of Jerusalem, the marvels of
Rome, live once more. He adds to the glories of the middle ages by the
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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 Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: nor even know, his peril. Her position became, like hell, a moral
prison from which there was no issue, in which there was no hope.
Madame Claes resolved to know at least the outward attractions of this
fatal science, and she began secretly to study chemistry in the books.
From this time the family became, as it were, cloistered.
Such were the successive changes brought by this dire misfortune upon
the family of Claes, before it reached the species of atrophy in which
we find it at the moment when this history begins.
The situation grew daily more complicated. Like all passionate women,
Madame Claes was disinterested. Those who truly love know that
considerations of money count for little in matters of feeling and are
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