| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane: was a group of four or five corpses keeping
mournful company. A hot sun had blazed upon
the spot.
In this place the youth felt that he was an
invader. This forgotten part of the battle ground
was owned by the dead men, and he hurried, in
the vague apprehension that one of the swollen
forms would rise and tell him to begone.
He came finally to a road from which he
could see in the distance dark and agitated
bodies of troops, smoke-fringed. In the lane
The Red Badge of Courage |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad: moustaches seemed to become more accentuated - quite real, grim,
actually almost visible through the wet and uncurled hair. Judging
by that symptom, he must have been in a towering rage. But I could
also see that he was puzzled, and that discovery affected me
disagreeably. Dominic puzzled! For a long time, leaning against
the bulwark, I gazed over the stern at the gray column that seemed
to stand swaying slightly in our wake always at the same distance.
Meanwhile Dominic, black and cowled, sat cross-legged on the deck,
with his back to the wind, recalling vaguely an Arab chief in his
burnuss sitting on the sand. Above his motionless figure the
little cord and tassel on the stiff point of the hood swung about
The Mirror of the Sea |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Madam How and Lady Why by Charles Kingsley: And why is the mouth of the chimney called a crater?
Crater, as you know, is Greek for a cup. And the mouth of these
chimneys, when they have become choked and stopped working, are
often just the shape of a cup, or (as the Germans call them)
kessels, which means kettles, or caldrons. I have seen some of
them as beautifully and exactly rounded as if a cunning engineer
had planned them, and had them dug out with the spade. At first,
of course, their sides and bottom are nothing but loose stones,
cinders, slag, ashes, such as would be thrown out of a furnace.
But Madam How, who, whenever she makes an ugly desolate place,
always tries to cover over its ugliness, and set something green
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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 Hellenica by Xenophon: off the roof, and began striking them down with the tiles. They,
recognising that there was no choice, called upon their assailants to
desist, and undertook to come forth. Then their opponents, capturing
them like birds in a fowler's hand, bound them with chains, threw them
on to the prisoner's van,[11] and led them off to Tegea. Here with the
Mantineans they sentenced and put them to death.
[10] Pallantium, one of the most ancient towns of Arcadia, in the
Maenalia (Paus. VIII. xliv. 5; Livy, i. 5), situated somewhat
south of the modern Tripolitza (see "Dict. of Anc. Geog."); like
Asea and Eutaea it helped to found Megalopolis (Paus. VIII. xxvii.
3, where for {'Iasaia} read {'Asea}); below, VII. v. 5; Busolt,
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