| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield: and sit down?" he said.
She pretended not to see and swung on to the table. "Oh, I'm all right
here."
"No, you're not"--again the teasing voice. "Come and sit on my knee."
"Oh no," said Viola very heartily, suddenly busy with her hair.
"Why not?"
"I don't want to."
"Oh, come along"--impatiently.
She shook her head from side to side. "I wouldn't dream of such a thing."
At that he got up and came over to her. "Funny little puss cat!" He put
up one hand to touch her hair.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: Brenzett Church.
"Officially, the body of the little girl in the red
frock is the first thing that came ashore from that
ship. But I have patients amongst the seafaring
population of West Colebrook, and, unofficially, I
am informed that very early that morning two
brothers, who went down to look after their cobble
hauled up on the beach, found, a good way from
Brenzett, an ordinary ship's hencoop lying high
and dry on the shore, with eleven drowned ducks
inside. Their families ate the birds, and the hen-
Amy Foster |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy: from the outside, whilst a rough, commanding voice shouted,--
"Hey! Citoyen Brogard! Hola!"
Marguerite could not see the newcomers, but, through a hole in
one of the curtains, she could observe one portion of the room below.
She heard Brogard's shuffling footsteps, as he came out of the
inner room, muttering his usual string of oaths. On seeing the
strangers, however, he paused in the middle of the room, well within
range of Marguerite's vision, looked at them, with even more withering
contempt than he had bestowed upon his former guests, and muttered,
"SACRRREE SOUTANE!"
Marguerite's heart seemed all at once to stop beating; her
The Scarlet Pimpernel |
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 Democracy In America, Volume 1 by Alexis de Toqueville: the North, and ruins the South; for if this were not the case, to
what can we attribute the continually increasing power and wealth
of the North, with its inclement skies and arid soil; whilst the
South, which may be styled the garden of America, is rapidly
declining?" *q
[Footnote q: See the report of its committee to the Convention
which proclaimed the nullification of the tariff in South
Carolina.]
If the changes which I have described were gradual, so that
each generation at least might have time to disappear with the
order of things under which it had lived, the danger would be
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