| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe: and Aunt Chloe had another spread out before her on the table.
Carefully she rubbed and ironed every fold and every hem, with the
most scrupulous exactness, every now and then raising her hand to
her face to wipe off the tears that were coursing down her cheeks.
Tom sat by, with his Testament open on his knee, and his head
leaning upon his hand;--but neither spoke. It was yet early,
and the children lay all asleep together in their little rude
trundle-bed.
Tom, who had, to the full, the gentle, domestic heart,
which woe for them! has been a peculiar characteristic of his
unhappy race, got up and walked silently to look at his children.
Uncle Tom's Cabin |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from All's Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare: a maid is her name; and no legacy is so rich as honesty.
WIDOW.
I have told my neighbour how you have been solicited by a
gentleman his companion.
MARIANA.
I know that knave; hang him! one Parolles: a filthy officer he is
in those suggestions for the young earl.--Beware of them, Diana;
their promises, enticements, oaths, tokens, and all these engines
of lust, are not the things they go under; many a maid hath been
seduced by them; and the misery is, example, that so terrible
shows in the wreck of maidenhood, cannot for all that dissuade
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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 Time Machine by H. G. Wells: They had long since dropped to pieces, and every semblance of
print had left them. But here and there were warped boards and
cracked metallic clasps that told the tale well enough. Had I
been a literary man I might, perhaps, have moralized upon the
futility of all ambition. But as it was, the thing that struck
me with keenest force was the enormous waste of labour to which
this sombre wilderness of rotting paper testified. At the time I
will confess that I thought chiefly of the PHILOSOPHICAL
TRANSACTIONS and my own seventeen papers upon physical optics.
`Then, going up a broad staircase, we came to what may once
have been a gallery of technical chemistry. And here I had not a
The Time Machine |
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 The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: Later in the afternoon we had a cautious try at whispering.
The Sunday quietness of the ship was against us; the stillness
of air and water around her was against us; the elements,
the men were against us--everything was against us in our
secret partnership; time itself--for this could not go on forever.
The very trust in Providence was, I suppose, denied to his guilt.
Shall I confess that this thought cast me down very much?
And as to the chapter of accidents which counts for so much
in the book of success, I could only hope that it was closed.
For what favorable accident could be expected?
"Did you hear everything?" were my first words as soon as we took
The Secret Sharer |
