| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Glasses by Henry James: hour than ever, ever before!"
It gave them almost equal pleasure and made Dawling blush to his
eyes; while this in turn produced, in spite of deepened
astonishment, a blest snap of the strain I had been struggling
with. I wanted to embrace them both, and while the opening bars of
another scene rose from the orchestra I almost did embrace Dawling,
whose first emotion on beholding me had visibly and ever so oddly
been a consciousness of guilt. I had caught him somehow in the
act, though that was as yet all I knew; but by the time we sank
noiselessly into our chairs again--for the music was supreme,
Wagner passed first--my demonstration ought pretty well to have
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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 Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Bronte Sisters: bitterness to the fact of its being offered in your presence; and
since you bid me forgive it, I will, and forget it too.'
'I guess the best return I can make will be to take myself off,'
muttered Hattersley, with a broad grin. His companion smiled, and
he left the room. This put me on my guard. Mr. Hargrave turned
seriously to me, and earnestly began, -
'Dear Mrs. Huntingdon, how I have longed for, yet dreaded, this
hour! Do not be alarmed,' he added, for my face was crimson with
anger: 'I am not about to offend you with any useless entreaties
or complaints. I am not going to presume to trouble you with the
mention of my own feelings or your perfections, but I have
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg by Mark Twain: Meantime a stranger, who looked like an amateur detective gotten up
as an impossible English earl, had been watching the evening's
proceedings with manifest interest, and with a contented expression
in his face; and he had been privately commenting to himself. He
was now soliloquising somewhat like this: 'None of the Eighteen are
bidding; that is not satisfactory; I must change that--the dramatic
unities require it; they must buy the sack they tried to steal; they
must pay a heavy price, too--some of them are rich. And another
thing, when I make a mistake in Hadleyburg nature the man that puts
that error upon me is entitled to a high honorarium, and some one
must pay. This poor old Richards has brought my judgment to shame;
The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg |
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 Before Adam by Jack London: suddenly, there would rush into the very midst of it
strange forms and ferocious happenings, the thunder and
crashing of storm, or unfamiliar landscapes such as in
my wake-a-day life I had never seen. The result was
confusion and nightmare. I could comprehend nothing of
it. There was no logic of sequence.
You see, I did not dream consecutively. One moment I
was a wee babe of the Younger World lying in my tree
nest; the next moment I was a grown man of the Younger
World locked in combat with the hideous Red-Eye; and
the next moment I was creeping carefully down to the
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