| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence: Mrs. Morel was alone, but she was used to it. Her son and her
little girl slept upstairs; so, it seemed, her home was there behind her,
fixed and stable. But she felt wretched with the coming child.
The world seemed a dreary place, where nothing else would happen
for her--at least until William grew up. But for herself,
nothing but this dreary endurance--till the children grew up.
And the children! She could not afford to have this third.
She did not want it. The father was serving beer in a public house,
swilling himself drunk. She despised him, and was tied to him.
This coming child was too much for her. If it were not for William
and Annie, she was sick of it, the struggle with
Sons and Lovers |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: Johnson, - some that it is for the sake of the stately sound only.
I don't think they get to the bottom of it. It is, I suspect, an
instinctive and involuntary effort of the mind to present a thought
or image with the THREE DIMENSIONS that belong to every solid, - an
unconscious handling of an idea as if it had length, breadth, and
thickness. It is a great deal easier to say this than to prove it,
and a great deal easier to dispute it than to disprove it. But
mind this: the more we observe and study, the wider we find the
range of the automatic and instinctive principles in body, mind,
and morals, and the narrower the limits of the self-determining
conscious movement.
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Case of The Lamp That Went Out by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: making queer experiments; he knows a lot about scientific things."
Muller shook his head as if in wonderment, and bent to investigate
the button which was fastened into the wall beneath the window sill.
His quick ear heard a carriage stopping in front of the house, and
heard the closing of the front door a moment later. To facilitate
his examination of the button, the detective had seated himself in
the armchair which stood beside the desk. He half raised himself
now to let the light of the candle fall more clearly on the wiring
- then he started up altogether and threw a hasty glance at the
mirrors above his head. A ray of light had suddenly flashed down
upon him - a ray of red light, and it came reflected from the
|
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 Mucker by Edgar Rice Burroughs: made his way cautiously toward the two huts. All was quiet.
He assumed that the party was asleep, and so he lay down
near the rude shelter he had constructed for Barbara Harding,
and fell asleep.
It was broad daylight when he awoke--the sun was fully
three hours high, and yet no one was stirring. For the first
time misgivings commenced to assail Billy's mind. Could it be
possible? He crossed over to his own hut and entered--it was
deserted. Then he ran to Barbara's--it, too, was unoccupied.
They had gone!
All during the painful trip from the village to the island
The Mucker |
