| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay: Its still, dark green water curved around a bend out of sight, into
the forest. The trees on both banks overhung the water, so that it
was completely in shadow.
He went as far as the bend, beyond which another short reach
appeared. A man was sitting on a narrow shelf of bank, with his feet
in the water. He was clothed in a coarse, rough hide, which left his
limbs bare. He was short, thick, and sturdy, with short legs and a
long, powerful arms, terminating in hands of an extraordinary size.
He was oldish. His face was plain, slablike, and expressionless; it
was full of wrinkles, and walnut-coloured. Both face and head were
bald, and his skin was tough and leathery. He seemed to be some sort
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from One Basket by Edna Ferber: religion or something, and wants to quit and be decent, why
doesn't she go to another town-- Chicago or someplace--where
nobody knows her?"
That motion of Alderman Mooney's thumb against the smooth pipe
bowl stopped. He looked up slowly.
"That's what I said--the mayor too. But Blanche Devine said she
wanted to try it here. She said this was home to her.
Funny--ain't it? Said she wouldn't be fooling anybody here.
They know her. And if she moved away, she said, it'd leak out
some way sooner or later. It does, she said. Always! Seems she
wants to live like--well, like other women. She put it like
 One Basket |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Father Sergius by Leo Tolstoy: College and every time Kasatsky saw that tall erect figure, with
breast expanded in its military overcoat, entering with brisk
step, saw the cropped side-whiskers, the moustache, the aquiline
nose, and heard the sonorous voice exchanging greetings with the
cadets, he was seized by the same rapture that he experienced
later on when he met the woman he loved. Indeed, his passionate
adoration of the Emperor was even stronger: he wished to
sacrifice something--everything, even himself--to prove his
complete devotion. And the Emperor Nicholas was conscious of
evoking this rapture and deliberately aroused it. He played with
the cadets, surrounded himself with them, treating them sometimes
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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 The Lamentable Tragedy of Locrine and Mucedorus by William Shakespeare: BREMO.
Away, I say, I will not spare him.
MUCEDORUS.
Yet give me leave to speak.
BREMO.
Thou shalt not speak.
AMADINE.
Yet give him leave to speak for my sake.
BREMO.
Speak on, but be not over long.
MUCEDORUS.
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