| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tales and Fantasies by Robert Louis Stevenson: unconscious of the approach of intoxication. Indeed, it is a
question whether he were really growing intoxicated, or
whether at first the spirits did not even sober him. For it
was even as he drained this last glass that his father's
ambiguous and menacing words - popping from their hiding-
place in memory - startled him like a hand laid upon his
shoulder. 'Crimes, hunted, the gallows.' They were ugly
words; in the ears of an innocent man, perhaps all the
uglier; for if some judicial error were in act against him,
who should set a limit to its grossness or to how far it
might be pushed? Not John, indeed; he was no believer in the
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tales of Unrest by Joseph Conrad: There could not be! There could not be! And yet how near to . . . With
a short thrill he saw himself an exiled forlorn figure in a realm of
ungovernable, of unrestrained folly. Nothing could be foreseen,
foretold--guarded against. And the sensation was intolerable, had
something of the withering horror that may be conceived as following
upon the utter extinction of all hope. In the flash of thought the
dishonouring episode seemed to disengage itself from everything
actual, from earthly conditions, and even from earthly suffering; it
became purely a terrifying knowledge, an annihilating knowledge of a
blind and infernal force. Something desperate and vague, a flicker of
an insane desire to abase himself before the mysterious impulses of
Tales of Unrest |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: panting and blowing close behind him; he even fancied that he
felt his hot breath. Another convulsive kick in the ribs, and old
Gunpowder sprang upon the bridge; he thundered over the
resounding planks; he gained the opposite side; and now Ichabod
cast a look behind to see if his pursuer should vanish, according
to rule, in a flash of fire and brimstone. Just then he saw the
goblin rising in his stirrups, and in the very act of hurling his
head at him. Ichabod endeavored to dodge the horrible missile,
but too late. It encountered his cranium with a tremendous
crash, --he was tumbled headlong into the dust, and Gunpowder,
the black steed, and the goblin rider, passed by like a whirlwind.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow |
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 Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare: SERVANT.
Your honour's players, hearing your amendment,
Are come to play a pleasant comedy;
For so your doctors hold it very meet,
Seeing too much sadness hath congeal'd your blood,
And melancholy is the nurse of frenzy:
Therefore they thought it good you hear a play,
And frame your mind to mirth and merriment,
Which bars a thousand harms and lengthens life.
SLY.
Marry, I will; let them play it. Is not a commonty a
The Taming of the Shrew |
