| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: the dogcart, I could hear Kennedy's laugh through
the half-open door left open of some cottage. He
had a big, hearty laugh that would have fitted a
man twice his size, a brisk manner, a bronzed face,
and a pair of grey, profoundly attentive eyes. He
had the talent of making people talk to him freely,
and an inexhaustible patience in listening to their
tales.
One day, as we trotted out of a large village into
a shady bit of road, I saw on our left hand a low,
black cottage, with diamond panes in the windows,
Amy Foster |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: "I should not mind anything at all."
"Let us be thankful that you are preserved from a state of such
insensibility."
"I never can be thankful, Mr. Bennet, for anything about the
entail. How anyone could have the conscience to entail away an
estate from one's own daughters, I cannot understand; and all
for the sake of Mr. Collins too! Why should HE have it more
than anybody else?"
"I leave it to yourself to determine," said Mr. Bennet.
Chapter 24
Miss Bingley's letter arrived, and put an end to doubt. The very
Pride and Prejudice |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Straight Deal by Owen Wister: that. But we and the English speak a tongue that has the same mother.
This identity in pedigree has led and still leads to countless family
discords. I've not a doubt that divergences in vocabulary and in accent
were the fount and origin of some swollen noses, some battered eyes, when
our Yankees mixed with the Tommies. Each would be certain to think that
the other couldn't "talk straight"--and each would be certain to say so.
I shall not here spin out a list of different names for the same things
now current in English and American usage: molasses and treacle will
suffice for an example; you will be able easily to think of others, and
there are many such that occur in everyday speech. Almost more tricky are
those words which both peoples use alike, but with different meanings. I
|
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 Herbert West: Reanimator by H. P. Lovecraft: West, for he began to look at me that way. People did not seem
to notice his glances, but they noticed my fear; and after his
disappearance used that as a basis for some absurd suspicions.
West, in reality, was more afraid than I; for his abominable
pursuits entailed a life of furtiveness and dread of every shadow.
Partly it was the police he feared; but sometimes his nervousness
was deeper and more nebulous, touching on certain indescribable
things into which he had injected a morbid life, and from which
he had not seen that life depart. He usually finished his experiments
with a revolver, but a few times he had not been quick enough.
There was that first specimen on whose rifled grave marks of clawing
Herbert West: Reanimator |
