| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas: "Do you know what they are saying here?"
"No, your eminence."
"Well, they say that Monsieur de Beaufort is going to escape
from Vincennes, if he has not done so already."
The officer's face expressed complete stupefaction. He
opened at once his little eyes and his great mouth, to
inhale better the joke his eminence deigned to address to
him, and ended by a burst of laughter, so violent that his
great limbs shook in hilarity as they would have done in an
ague.
"Escape! my lord -- escape! Your eminence does not then know
Twenty Years After |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from O Pioneers! by Willa Cather: money. Why, Alexandra, you are forty years old!"
"All that doesn't concern anybody but Carl
and me. Go to town and ask your lawyers what
you can do to restrain me from disposing of my
own property. And I advise you to do what
they tell you; for the authority you can exert
by law is the only influence you will ever have
over me again." Alexandra rose. "I think I
would rather not have lived to find out what I
have to-day," she said quietly, closing her desk.
O Pioneers! |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Witch, et. al by Anton Chekhov: coarse, dishonest, drunken, and abused one another just as
revoltingly; the paltriest little clerk or official treated the
peasants as though they were tramps, and addressed even the
village elders and church wardens as inferiors, and considered
they had a right to do so. And, indeed, can any sort of help or
good example be given by mercenary, greedy, depraved, and idle
persons who only visit the village in order to insult, to
despoil, and to terrorize? Olga remembered the pitiful,
humiliated look of the old people when in the winter Kiryak had
been taken to be flogged. . . . And now she felt sorry for all
these people, painfully so, and as she walked on she kept looking
|
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 School For Scandal by Richard Brinsley Sheridan: linen gown--with a Bunch of Keys at your side, and your apartment
hung round with Fruits in worsted, of your own working--
LADY TEAZLE. O horrible!--horrible!--don't put me in mind of it!
SIR PETER. Yes, yes Madam and your daily occupation to inspect
the Dairy, superintend the Poultry, make extracts from the Family
Receipt-book, and comb your aunt Deborah's Lap Dog.
LADY TEAZLE. Abominable!
SIR PETER. Yes Madam--and what were your evening amusements?
to draw Patterns for Ruffles, which you hadn't the materials to make--
play Pope Joan with the Curate--to read a sermon to your Aunt--
or be stuck down to an old Spinet to strum your father to sleep
|
