| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Duchesse de Langeais by Honore de Balzac: ledge of granite in the sea; yet held apart by an intangible,
unsurmountable barrier! Try to imagine the man saying within
himself, "Shall I triumph over God in her heart?" when a faint
rustling sound made him quiver, and the curtain was drawn aside.
Between him and the light stood a woman. Her face was hidden by
the veil that drooped from the folds upon her head; she was
dressed according to the rule of the order in a gown of the
colour become proverbial. Her bare feet were hidden; if the
General could have seen them, he would have known how appallingly
thin she had grown; and yet in spite of the thick folds of her
coarse gown, a mere covering and no ornament, he could guess how
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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 Outlaw of Torn by Edgar Rice Burroughs: did his off-hand reply entirely deceive the old man.
At this juncture a squire entered to say that Shandy's
presence was required at the gates, and that worthy,
with a sorrowing and regretful glance at the unemptied
flagon, left the room.
For a few moments the two men sat in meditative
silence, which was presently broken by the old man of
Torn.
"Priest," he said, "thy ways with my son are, as you
know, not to my liking. It were needless that he should
have wasted so much precious time from sword play
The Outlaw of Torn |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Walden by Henry David Thoreau: complete retirement, being, about two miles from the village, half a
mile from the nearest neighbor, and separated from the highway by a
broad field; its bounding on the river, which the owner said
protected it by its fogs from frosts in the spring, though that was
nothing to me; the gray color and ruinous state of the house and
barn, and the dilapidated fences, which put such an interval between
me and the last occupant; the hollow and lichen-covered apple trees,
nawed by rabbits, showing what kind of neighbors I should have; but
above all, the recollection I had of it from my earliest voyages up
the river, when the house was concealed behind a dense grove of red
maples, through which I heard the house-dog bark. I was in haste to
Walden |
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 Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: MEMORIAM, but I am submerged with other work. Are you going to do
it? I very much admire your efforts that way; you are our only
academician.
So you have tried fiction? I will tell you the truth: when I saw
it announced, I was so sure you would send it to me, that I did not
order it! But the order goes this mail, and I will give you news
of it. Yes, honestly, fiction is very difficult; it is a terrible
strain to CARRY your characters all that time. And the difficulty
of according the narrative and the dialogue (in a work in the third
person) is extreme. That is one reason out of half a dozen why I
so often prefer the first. It is much in my mind just now, because
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