| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll: looking away from Alice as he spoke, `to be called an egg--
VERY!'
`I said you LOOKED like an egg, Sir,' Alice gently explained.
`And some eggs are very pretty, you know' she added, hoping to
turn her remark into a sort of a compliment.
`Some people,' said Humpty Dumpty, looking away from her as
usual, `have no more sense than a baby!'
Alice didn't know what to say to this: it wasn't at all like
conversation, she thought, as he never said anything to HER; in
fact, his last remark was evidently addressed to a tree--so she
stood and softly repeated to herself: --
Through the Looking-Glass |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy: Arabella remarked gloomily. "Surely you didn't come fifty
miles from your own bar to stick in another? Come, take me
round the show, as other men do their wives! Dammy, one would
think you were a young bachelor, with nobody to look after
but yourself!"
"But we agreed to meet here; and what could I do but wait?"
"Well, now we have met, come along," she returned, ready to quarrel
with the sun for shining on her. And they left the tent together,
this pot-bellied man and florid woman, in the antipathetic,
recriminatory mood of the average husband and wife of Christendom.
In the meantime the more exceptional couple and the boy still
Jude the Obscure |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Yates Pride by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: little boyish trick which had survived time. It was too late for
her to draw back, for he had seen her, and Eudora was keenly
alive to the indignity of abruptly turning and scuttling away
with the tail of her black silk swishing, her India shawl
trailing, and the baby-carriage bumping over the furrows. She
continued, and Harry Lawton continued, and they met.
Harry Lawton had known Eudora at once. She looked the same to
him as when she had been a girl, and he looked the same to her
when he spoke.
"Hullo, Eudora," said Harry Lawton, in a ludicrously boyish
fashion. His face flushed, too, like a boy. He extended his hand
|
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 Forged Coupon by Leo Tolstoy: Lisa's voice.
"Maria Ivanovna--has he been crying while
I've been gone--I was--"
Then she saw her father. The parcel she was
carrying fell from her hands.
"Father!" she cried, and stopped in the door-
way, white and trembling.
He remained motionless, staring at her. She
had grown so thin. Her eyes were larger, her
nose sharper, her hands worn and bony. He
neither knew what to do, nor what to say. He
The Forged Coupon |
