| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from St. Ives by Robert Louis Stevenson: She gave me a look that was a reward in itself; and as I turned
away from her, with a strong sense of turning away from the sun, I
carried that look in my bosom like a caress. The girl in pink was
an arch, ogling person, with a good deal of eyes and teeth, and a
great play of shoulders and rattle of conversation. There could be
no doubt, from Mr. Ronald's attitude, that he worshipped the very
chair she sat on. But I was quite ruthless. I laid my hand on his
shoulder, as he was stooping over her like a hen over a chicken.
'Excuse me for one moment, Mr. Gilchrist!' said I.
He started and span about in answer to my touch, and exhibited a
face of inarticulate wonder.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: "See the accident?" asked the policeman.
"No, but the car passed me down the road, going faster'n forty. Going
fifty, sixty."
"Come here and let's have your name. Look out now. I want to get his
name."
Some words of this conversation must have reached Wilson, swaying
in the office door, for suddenly a new theme found voice among
his gasping cries:
"You don't have to tell me what kind of car it was! I know what kind of
car it was!"
Watching Tom, I saw the wad of muscle back of his shoulder tighten
The Great Gatsby |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: others be humiliated first; like a child who will not take
his medicine until he has made his nurse and his mother drink
of it before him. "But I have, say you, written a
treasonable book against the regiment and empire of women. .
. . The writing of that book I will not deny; but to prove it
treasonable I think it shall be hard. . . . It is hinted that
my book shall be written against. If so be, sir, I greatly
doubt they shall rather hurt nor (than) mend the matter."
And here come the terms of capitulation; for he does not
surrender unconditionally, even in this sore strait: "And yet
if any," he goes on, "think me enemy to the person, or yet to
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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 Essays of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: The brightness - heaven and earth conspiring to be bright - the
levity and quiet of the air; the odd stirring silence - more stirring
than a tumult; the snow, the frost, the enchanted landscape: all
have their part in the effect and on the memory, 'TOUS VOUS TAPENT
SUR LA TETE'; and yet when you have enumerated all, you have gone no
nearer to explain or even to qualify the delicate exhilaration that
you feel - delicate, you may say, and yet excessive, greater than can
be said in prose, almost greater than an invalid can bear. There is
a certain wine of France known in England in some gaseous disguise,
but when drunk in the land of its nativity still as a pool, clean as
river water, and as heady as verse. It is more than probable that in
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