| 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: maid to his mother. She was now housekeeper and was also acting
for the time as superintendent to the little girl, of whom,
without children of her own, she was, by good luck, extremely fond.
There were plenty of people to help, but of course the young lady
who should go down as governess would be in supreme authority.
She would also have, in holidays, to look after the small boy,
who had been for a term at school--young as he was to be sent,
but what else could be done?--and who, as the holidays were
about to begin, would be back from one day to the other.
There had been for the two children at first a young lady
whom they had had the misfortune to lose. She had done
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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 Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx: drag
it into the political arena. The bourgeoisie itself, therefore,
supplies the proletariat with its own instruments of political
and general education, in other words, it furnishes the
proletariat
with weapons for fighting the bourgeoisie.
Further, as we have already seen, entire sections of the ruling
classes are, by the advance of industry, precipitated into the
proletariat, or are at least threatened in their conditions of
existence. These also supply the proletariat with fresh elements
of enlightenment and progress.
The Communist Manifesto |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs: Tarzan's hip; but the man would not understand, and Tarzan
did not dare release his hold to do the things himself, for he
knew that the puny white man never could hold mighty
Sabor alone, for an instant.
Slowly the lioness was emerging from the window. At last
her shoulders were out.
And then Clayton saw an incredible thing. Tarzan, racking
his brains for some means to cope single-handed with the
infuriated beast, had suddenly recalled his battle with Terkoz;
and as the great shoulders came clear of the window, so that
the lioness hung upon the sill only by her forepaws, Tarzan
Tarzan of the Apes |
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 Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson: sop of broken carrion, fit for dogs to roll in."
It was dark night when he made an end; they had listened in almost
perfect silence; but the firelight scarce permitted any one to
judge, from the look of his neighbours, with what result of
persuasion or conviction. Indeed, the Master had set himself in
the brightest place, and kept his face there, to be the centre of
men's eyes: doubtless on a profound calculation. Silence followed
for awhile, and presently the whole party became involved in
disputation: the Master lying on his back, with his hands knit
under his head and one knee flung across the other, like a person
unconcerned in the result. And here, I daresay, his bravado
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