| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Heritage of the Desert by Zane Grey: screaming and wailing of women added certainty to their doubt and dread.
"I see only the women--the children--no--there's a man--Zeke," said Hare,
bending low to gaze under the branches.
"Go slow," muttered Naab.
"The rustlers rode off--after Mescal--she's gone!" panted Judith.
Hare, spurred by the possibilities in the half-crazed girl's speech, cast
caution to the winds and dashed forward into the glade. Naab's heavy
steps thudded behind him.
In the corner of the porch scared and stupefied children huddled in a
heap. George and Billy bent over Dave, who sat white-faced against the
steps. Blood oozed through the fingers pressed to his breast. Zeke was
The Heritage of the Desert |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence: again this time, somebody was going to display him, and to advantage.
He invited Michaelis down to Wragby with Act I.
Michaelis came: in summer, in a pale-coloured suit and white suede
gloves, with mauve orchids for Connie, very lovely, and Act I was a
great success. Even Connie was thrilled...thrilled to what bit of
marrow she had left. And Michaelis, thrilled by his power to thrill,
was really wonderful...and quite beautiful, in Connie's eyes. She saw
in him that ancient motionlessness of a race that can't be
disillusioned any more, an extreme, perhaps, of impurity that is pure.
On the far side of his supreme prostitution to the bitch-goddess he
seemed pure, pure as an African ivory mask that dreams impurity into
Lady Chatterley's Lover |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw: ideal is a humbug and a nuisance: one might as reasonably talk of the
barrack ideal, or the forecastle ideal, or any other substitution of
the machinery of social organization for the end of it, which must
always be the fullest and most capable life: in short, the most godly
life. And this significant word reminds us that though the popular
conception of heaven includes a Holy Family, it does not attach to
that family the notion of a separate home, or a private nursery or
kitchen or mother-in-law, or anything that constitutes the family as
we know it. Even blood relationship is miraculously abstracted from
it; and the Father is the father of all children, the mother the
mother of all mothers and babies, and the Son the Son of Man and the
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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 Tono Bungay by H. G. Wells: anything of it at all. One evening I was surprised to come upon
my uncle in a mixture of Bohemia and smart people at an At Home
in the flat of Robbert, the R.A. who painted my aunt, and he was
standing a little apart in a recess, talking or rather being
talked to in undertones by a plump, blond little woman in pale
blue, a Helen Scrymgeour who wrote novels and was organising a
weekly magazine. I elbowed a large lady who was saying
something about them, but I didn't need to hear the thing she
said to perceive the relationship of the two. It hit me like a
placard on a hoarding. I was amazed the whole gathering did not
see it. Perhaps they did. She was wearing a remarkably fine
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