| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell: about her waist.
"There are things more important now than plowing, Sugar. And
scaring the darkies and teaching the Scallawags a lesson is one of
them. As long as there are fine boys like Tony left, I guess we
won't need to worry about the South too much. Come to bed."
"But, Frank--"
"If we just stand together and don't give an inch to the Yankees,
we'll win, some day. Don't you bother your pretty head about it,
Sugar. You let your men folks worry about it. Maybe it won't come
in our time, but surely it will come some day. The Yankees will
get tired of pestering us when they see they can't even dent us,
Gone With the Wind |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Juana by Honore de Balzac: penetrating mother-looks. Juana had watched him from his cradle; she
had studied his cries, his motions; she endeavored to discern his
nature that she might educate him wisely. It seemed at times as if she
had but that one child. Diard, seeing that the eldest, Juan, was in a
way neglected, took him under his own protection; and without
inquiring even of himself whether the boy was the fruit of that
ephemeral love to which he owed his wife, he made him his Benjamin.
Of all the sentiments transmitted to her through the blood of her
grandmothers which consumed her, Madame Diard accepted one alone,--
maternal love. But she loved her children doubly: first with the noble
violence of which her mother the Marana had given her the example;
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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 Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart: he faced the possibility of an opening door into the past, of
crowding memories, of confusion and despair and even actual danger.
And out of that, what?
Habit. That was all he had to depend on. The brain was a thing
of habits, like the body; right could be a habit, and so could
evil. As a man thought, so he was. For all of his childhood, and
for the last ten years, Dick's mental habits had been right; his
environment had been love, his teaching responsibility. Even if
the door opened, then, there was only the evil thinking of two or
three reckless years to combat, and the door might never open.
Happiness, Lauler had said, would keep it closed, and Dick was happy.
The Breaking Point |
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 Allan Quatermain by H. Rider Haggard: here among my own people am I held right fair, and ever since
I was a woman the great lords of my kingdom have made quarrel
concerning me, as though forsooth,' she added with a flash of
passion, 'I were a deer to be pulled down by the hungriest wolf,
or a horse to be sold to the highest bidder. Let my lord pardon
me if I weary my lord, but it hath pleased my lord to say that
he loves me, Nyleptha, a Queen of the Zu-Vendi, and therefore
would I say that though my love and my hand be not much to my
lord, yet to me are they all.'
'Oh!' she cried, with a sudden and thrilling change of voice,
and modifying her dignified mode of address. 'Oh, how can I
Allan Quatermain |
