| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott: the cupboard," broke in Snodgrass, who was enjoying the joke
amazingly.
"Never mind what she says. I'm the wretch that did it, sir,"
said the new member, with a Welleresque nod to Mr. Pickwick. "But
on my honor, I never will do so again, and henceforth devote myself
to the interest of this immortal club."
"Hear! Hear!" cried Jo, clashing the lid of the warming pan
like a cymbal.
"Go on, go on!" added Winkle and Tupman, while the President
bowed benignly.
"I merely wish to say, that as a slight token of my gratitude
Little Women |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith: with a bow, and "Madam, I would not for the world detain you."
HARDCASTLE. He spoke to me as if he knew me all his life before;
asked twenty questions, and never waited for an answer; interrupted my
best remarks with some silly pun; and when I was in my best story of
the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene, he asked if I had not a good
hand at making punch. Yes, Kate, he asked your father if he was a
maker of punch!
MISS HARDCASTLE. One of us must certainly be mistaken.
HARDCASTLE. If he be what he has shown himself, I'm determined he
shall never have my consent.
MISS HARDCASTLE. And if he be the sullen thing I take him, he shall
She Stoops to Conquer |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Extracts From Adam's Diary by Mark Twain: ever saw, considering the lateness of the season--and arrayed
myself in the discarded boughs and branches, and then spoke to her
with some severity and ordered her to go and get some more and not
make such a spectacle of herself. She did it, and after this we
crept down to where the wild-beast battle had been, and collected
some skins, and I made her patch together a couple of suits proper
for public occasions. They are uncomfortable, it is true, but
stylish, and that is the main point about clothes. ... I find
she is a good deal of a companion. I see I should be lonesome and
depressed without her, now that I have lost my property. Another
thing, she says it is ordered that we work for our living hereafter.
|
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 American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: literary hero of the present hour, 'the man who came from
nowhere,' as he says himself, and who a year ago was consciously
nothing in the literary world."
Six months previous to this Mr. Kipling, then but twenty-four
years old, had arrived in England from India to find that fame
had preceded him. He had already gained fame in India, where
scores of cultured and critical people, after reading
"Departmental Ditties," "Plain Tales from the Hills," and various
other stories and verses, had stamped him for a genius.
Fortunately for everybody who reads, London interested and
stimulated Mr. Kipling, and he settled down to writing. "The
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