| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Pool in the Desert by Sara Jeanette Duncan: derogatory and disastrous to impart without the sense of doing him
some kind of injury in the mere statement. But there came a point
when I could no longer listen to Dora Harris's theories to account
for him, wild idealizations as most of them were of any man's
circumstances and intentions. 'Why don't you ask him point-blank?'
I said, and she replied, frowning slightly, 'Oh, I couldn't do that.
It would destroy something--I don't know what, but something
valuable--between us.' This struck me as an exaggeration,
considering how far, by that time, they must have progressed towards
intimacy, and my mouth was opened. She heard me without the
exclamations I expected, her head bent over the pencil she was
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence: Don't ask me what I should do; I don't know."
There was a silence. The stars shuddered and broke upon
the water. There came a breath of wind. He went suddenly to her,
and put his hand on her shoulder.
"Don't ask me anything about the future," he said miserably.
"I don't know anything. Be with me now, will you, no matter what
it is?"
And she took him in her arms. After all, she was a married woman,
and she had no right even to what he gave her. He needed her badly.
She had him in her arms, and he was miserable. With her warmth she
folded him over, consoled him, loved him. She would let the moment
Sons and Lovers |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Enoch Arden, &c. by Alfred Tennyson: The next day came a neighbor. Blues and reds
They talk'd of: blues were sure of it, he thought:
Then of the latest fox--where started--kill'd
In such a bottom: `Peter had the brush,
My Peter, first:' and did Sir Aylmer know
That great pock-pitten fellow had been caught?
Then made his pleasure echo, hand to hand,
And rolling as it were the substance of it
Between his palms a moment up and down--
`The birds were warm, the birds were warm upon him;
We have him now:' and had Sir Aylmer heard--
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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 The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: office under government. Such connections are not made in a day nor
yet in a year. By this time Rastignac had been so thoroughly entangled
by Nucingen, that being, like the Prince de la Paix, equally beloved
by the King and Queen of Spain, he fancied that he (Rastignac) had
secured a very valuable dupe in NUCINGEN! For a long while he had
laughed at a man whose capacities he was unable to estimate; he ended
in a sober, serious, and devout admiration of Nucingen, owning that
Nucingen really had the power which he thought he himself alone
possessed.
"From Rastignac's introduction to society in Paris, he had been led to
contemn it utterly. From the year 1820 he thought, like the Baron,
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