| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Altar of the Dead by Henry James: submission and at the same moment another wave rolled over him.
Was it the quickening of joy to pain? In the midst of his joy at
any rate he felt his buried face grow hot as with some communicated
knowledge that had the force of a reproach. It suddenly made him
contrast that very rapture with the bliss he had refused to
another. This breath of the passion immortal was all that other
had asked; the descent of Mary Antrim opened his spirit with a
great compunctious throb for the descent of Acton Hague. It was as
if Stransom had read what her eyes said to him.
After a moment he looked round in a despair that made him feel as
if the source of life were ebbing. The church had been empty - he
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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 Odyssey by Homer: lack of cheer for strangers, but now would it be worse for
thyself, forasmuch as I shall be away nor would my mother
see thee. For she comes not often in sight of the wooers in
the house, but abides apart from them in her upper chamber,
and weaves at her web. Yet there is one whom I will tell
thee of, to whom thou mayst go, Eurymachus the glorious son
of wise Polybus, whom now the men of Ithaca look upon, even
as if he were a god. For he is far the best man of them
all, and is most eager to wed my mother and to have the
sovereignty of Odysseus. Howbeit, Olympian Zeus, that
dwells in the clear sky, knows hereof, whether or no he
The Odyssey |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Market-Place by Harold Frederic: with an effort at simplicity.
The broker put out his under-lip. "You will find people
rather disposed to distrust a man who promises more than
he's asked," he remarked coldly.
"Yes--I know what you mean," Thorpe hurried to say,
flushing awkwardly, even though the remark was so undeserved;
"but it's in my nature. I'm full of the notion of
doing things for people that have done things for me.
That's the way I'm built. Why"--he halted to consider
the advisability of disclosing what he had promised to do
for Lord Plowden, and decided against it--"why, without you,
The Market-Place |
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 Dreams by Olive Schreiner: lights. And when we came among the trees he sang aloud, and his companion
answered, and it was a woman, and he showed me to her. She said, "He must
have water"; and she took some in her hands, and fed me (I had been afraid
to drink of the water in Hell), and they gathered fruit for me, and gave it
me to eat. They said, "We shone long to make it ripen," and they laughed
together as they saw me eat it.
The man said, "He is very weary; he must sleep" (for I had not dared to
sleep in Hell), and he laid my head on his companion's knee and spread her
hair out over me. I slept, and all the while in my sleep I thought I heard
the birds calling across me. And when I woke it was like early morning,
with the dew on everything.
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