| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell: fair side to an argument. Sometimes, there was no understanding
Ashley.
"Let's don't be too hot headed and let's don't have any war. Most
of the misery of the world has been caused by wars. And when the
wars were over, no one ever knew what they were all about."
Scarlett sniffed. Lucky for Ashley that he had an unassailable
reputation for courage, or else there'd be trouble. As she
thought this, the clamor of dissenting voices rose up about
Ashley, indignant, fiery.
Under the arbor, the deaf old gentleman from Fayetteville punched
India.
Gone With the Wind |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Under the Andes by Rex Stout: motionless lake, nor the leaping tongues of flame. We forgot these
when we followed the gaze of that terrifying audience and saw a
sight that printed itself on my brain with a vividness which time
can never erase. Closing my eyes, I see it even now, and I
shudder.
Exactly in the center of the lake, in the midst of the columns
of fire, was a fourth column, built of some strangely lustrous
rock. Prisms of a formation new to me--innumerable thousands of
them--caused its sides to sparkle and glisten like an immense tower
of whitest diamonds, blinding the eye.
The effect was indescribable. The huge cavern was lined and
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Exiles by Honore de Balzac: name! It had never named me before, but this time it bade me to
Heaven! Oh, how sweet is that voice!--As I could not fly to Heaven,"
he added artlessly, "I took the only way we know of going to God."
"My child! oh, sublime boy!" cried the old man, throwing his arms
round Godefroid, and clasping him to his heart. "You are a poet; you
can boldly ride the whirlwind! Your poetry does not proceed from your
heart; your living, burning thoughts, your creations, move and grow in
your soul.--Go, never reveal your ideas to the vulgar! Be at once the
altar, the priest, and the victim!
"You know Heaven, do you not? You have seen those myriads of angels,
white-winged, and holding golden sistrums, all soaring with equal
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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 Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen: present of my red shoes, if you will give him back to me."
And, as it seemed to her, the blue waves nodded in a strange manner; then she
took off her red shoes, the most precious things she possessed, and threw them
both into the river. But they fell close to the bank, and the little waves
bore them immediately to land; it was as if the stream would not take what was
dearest to her; for in reality it had not got little, Kay; but Gerda thought
that she had not thrown the shoes out far enough, so she clambered into a boat
which lay among the rushes, went to the farthest end, and threw out the shoes.
But the boat was not fastened, and the motion which she occasioned, made it
drift from the shore. She observed this, and hastened to get back; but before
she could do so, the boat was more than a yard from the land, and was gliding
Fairy Tales |
