| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe: of talk at all for you. You see, we're officers of justice.
We've got the law on our side, and the power, and so forth; so
you'd better give up peaceably, you see; for you'll certainly have
to give up, at last."
"I know very well that you've got the law on your side, and the
power," said George, bitterly. "You mean to take my wife
to sell in New Orleans, and put my boy like a calf in a trader's
pen, and send Jim's old mother to the brute that whipped and abused
her before, because he couldn't abuse her son. You want to send
Jim and me back to be whipped and tortured, and ground down under
the heels of them that you call masters; and your laws _will_ bear
Uncle Tom's Cabin |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Europeans by Henry James: that she was dying. "Good-by, dear madame," she said.
"I must remember that your strength is precious."
Mrs. Acton took her hand and held it a moment. "Well, you have
been happy here, have n't you? And you like us all, don't you?
I wish you would stay," she added, "in your beautiful little house."
She had told Eugenia that her waiting-woman would be in the hall,
to show her down-stairs; but the large landing outside
her door was empty, and Eugenia stood there looking about.
She felt irritated; the dying lady had not "la main heureuse."
She passed slowly down-stairs, still looking about. The broad staircase
made a great bend, and in the angle was a high window, looking westward,
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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 Dust by Mr. And Mrs. Haldeman-Julius: sleep--it was bad for his whole nervous system, but it would not
actually make him sick. What a chaos must be in that little
heart! His mother had failed him for the first time in his life.
It was cruel, the way Martin had forced her to this, and as she
listened, for the next half hour, to the muffled sound of Billy's
crying and saw how impervious to it Martin was, she knew that
never again could things be the same between her husband and
herself.
But when, supper over, she found the corners of the rosebud mouth
still pathetically down and Billy's breath still quivering in
long gasps, she gathered the snuggly body to her and vowed in
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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 Vailima Letters by Robert Louis Stevenson: anything to spoil, which I am far from saying. I'm as sick
of the thing as ever any one can be; it's a rudderless hulk;
it's a pagoda, and you can just feel - or I can feel - that
it might have been a pleasant story, if it had been only
blessed at baptism.
Our politics have gone on fairly well, but the result is
still doubtful.
SEPT. 10TH.
I know I have something else to say to you, but unfortunately
I awoke this morning with collywobbles, and had to take a
small dose of laudanum with the usual consequences of dry
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