| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Turn of the Screw by Henry James: and took a helpless middle way. "Why did you pull the curtain
over the place to make me think you were still there?"
Flora luminously considered; after which, with her little divine smile:
"Because I don't like to frighten you!"
"But if I had, by your idea, gone out--?"
She absolutely declined to be puzzled; she turned her eyes to the flame
of the candle as if the question were as irrelevant, or at any rate
as impersonal, as Mrs. Marcet or nine-times-nine. "Oh, but you know,"
she quite adequately answered, "that you might come back, you dear,
and that you HAVE!" And after a little, when she had got into bed,
I had, for a long time, by almost sitting on her to hold her hand,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas: promised an abbey. But don't fancy that I am going to take you
on your bare word. I am called Louis the Just, Monsieur de
Treville, and by and by, by and by we will see."
"Ah, sire; it is because I confide in that justice that I shall
wait patiently and quietly the good pleasure of your Majesty."
"Wait, then, monsieur, wait," said the king; "I will not detain
you long."
In fact, fortune changed; and as the king began to lose what he
had won, he was not sorry to find an excuse for playing
Charlemagne--if we may use a gaming phrase of whose origin we
confess our ignorance. The king therefore arose a minute after,
The Three Musketeers |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: the wall.
Next morning I sent the butler to New York with a letter to Wolfshiem,
which asked for information and urged him to come out on the next
train. That request seemed superfluous when I wrote it. I was sure he'd
start when he saw the newspapers, just as I was sure there'd be a wire
from Daisy before noon--but neither a wire nor Mr. Wolfshiem arrived; no
one arrived except more police and photographers and newspaper men.
When the butler brought back Wolfshiem's answer I began to have a
feeling of defiance, of scornful solidarity between Gatsby and me
against them all.
DEAR MR. CARRAWAY. This has been one of the most terrible shocks of my
The Great Gatsby |
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 An Unsocial Socialist by George Bernard Shaw: Charles, and had tramped with him through many European picture
galleries. He was a young man of gentle birth, and had inherited
fifteen hundred a year from his mother, the bulk of the family
property being his elder brother's. Having no profession, and
being fond of books and pictures, he had devoted himself to fine
art, a pursuit which offered him on the cheapest terms a high
opinion of the beauty and capacity of his own nature. He had
published a tragedy entitled, "The Patriot Martyrs," with an
etched frontispiece by Sir Charles, and an edition of it had been
speedily disposed of in presentations to the friends of the
artist and poet, and to the reviews and newspapers. Sir Charles
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