| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers by Jonathan Swift: with the devil and other evil spirits: And no wise man will ever
allow he could converse personally with either, till after he was
dead.
Thirdly, I will plainly prove him to be dead out of his own
almanack for this year, and from the very passage which he
produces to make us think him alive. He there says, "He is not
only now alive, but was also alive on the very 29th of March,
which I foretold he should die on": By this, he declares his
opinion, that a man may be alive now, who was not alive a
twelvemonth ago. And indeed, there lies the sophistry of this
argument. He dares not assert, he was alive ever since that 29th
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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 Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf: "I have made one attempt already this evening," said St. John.
"I rather doubt that it was successful. She seems to me so very young
and inexperienced. I have promised to lend her Gibbon."
"It's not Gibbon exactly," Helen pondered. "It's the facts of life,
I think--d'you see what I mean? What really goes on, what people feel,
although they generally try to hide it? There's nothing to be
frightened of. It's so much more beautiful than the pretences--
always more interesting--always better, I should say, than _that_
kind of thing."
She nodded her head at a table near them, where two girls and two young
men were chaffing each other very loudly, and carrying on an arch
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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 The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane: There was a race.
As he, leading, went across a little field, he
found himself in a region of shells. They hurtled
over his head with long wild screams. As he
listened he imagined them to have rows of cruel
teeth that grinned at him. Once one lit before
him and the livid lightning of the explosion
effectually barred the way in his chosen direc-
tion. He groveled on the ground and then
springing up went careering off through some
bushes.
The Red Badge of Courage |
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 Heart of the West by O. Henry: culinary manoeuvres.'
"'They're golden sunshine,' says he, 'honey-browned by the ambrosial
fires of Epicurus. I'd give two years of my life to get the recipe for
making them pancakes. That's what I went to see Miss Learight for,'
says Jackson Bird, 'but I haven't been able to get it from her. It's
an old recipe that's been in the family for seventy-five years. They
hand it down from one generation to another, but they don't give it
away to outsiders. If I could get that recipe, so I could make them
pancakes for myself on my ranch, I'd be a happy man,' says Bird.
"'Are you sure,' I says to him, 'that it ain't the hand that mixes the
pancakes that you're after?'
Heart of the West |
