| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Pool of Blood in the Pastor's Study by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: spreading terror. Finally the doctor came out from the rectory,
accompanied by the magistrate, and announced to the waiting
villagers that their venerable pastor had disappeared under
circumstances which left no doubt that he had met his death at
the hand of a murderer. The peasants listened in shuddering silence,
the men pale-faced, the women sobbing aloud with frightened children
hanging to their skirts. Then at the magistrate's order, the crowd
dispersed slowly, going to their homes, while a messenger set off
to the near-by county seat.
It was a weird, sad Easter Monday. Even nature seemed to feel the
pressure of the brooding horror, for heavy clouds piled up towards
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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 Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane: queer kind 'a hurt yerself. Yeh can't never tell.
Where is your'n located?"
The youth had been wriggling since the intro-
duction of this topic. He now gave a cry of ex-
asperation and made a furious motion with his
hand. "Oh, don't bother me!" he said. He was
enraged against the tattered man, and could have
strangled him. His companions seemed ever to
play intolerable parts. They were ever uprais-
ing the ghost of shame on the stick of their
curiosity. He turned toward the tattered man as
The Red Badge of Courage |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Long Odds by H. Rider Haggard: others--amongst whom he had passed so many years of his life.
Consequently the good wine took more effect on him than it would have
done on most men, sending a little flush into his wrinkled cheeks, and
making him talk more freely than usual.
Dear old man! I can see him now, as he went limping up and down the
vestibule, with his grey hair sticking up in scrubbing-brush fashion,
his shrivelled yellow face, and his large dark eyes, that were as keen
as any hawk's, and yet soft as a buck's. The whole room was hung with
trophies of his numerous hunting expeditions, and he had some story
about every one of them, if only he could be got to tell it. Generally
he would not, for he was not very fond of narrating his own adventures,
Long Odds |
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 Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: Love, which is debauch of reason, the strong and austere joy of a
lofty soul, and pleasure, the vulgar counterfeit sold in the market-
place, are two aspects of the same thing. The woman who can satisfy
both these devouring appetites is as rare in her sex as a great
general, a great writer, a great artist, a great inventor in a nation.
A man of superior intellect or an idiot--a Hulot or a Crevel--equally
crave for the ideal and for enjoyment; all alike go in search of the
mysterious compound, so rare that at last it is usually found to be a
work in two volumes. This craving is a depraved impulse due to
society.
Marriage, no doubt, must be accepted as a tie; it is life, with its
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