| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Flower Fables by Louisa May Alcott: tell me the path, and let me go."
"It is far, far away, high up above the sun, where no Spirit ever
dared to venture yet," replied the Queen. "I cannot show the path,
for it is through the air. Dear Ripple, do not go, for you can
never reach that distant place: some harm most surely will befall;
and then how shall we live, without our dearest, gentlest Spirit?
Stay here with us in your own pleasant home, and think more of this,
for I can never let you go."
But Ripple would not break the promise she had made, and besought
so earnestly, and with such pleading words, that the Queen at last
with sorrow gave consent, and Ripple joyfully prepared to go. She,
Flower Fables |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Night and Day by Virginia Woolf: large a slice. She knew that Mrs. Denham suspected her of critical
comparisons. She knew that she was making poor progress with her cake.
Mrs. Denham had looked at her sufficiently often to make it clear to
Katharine that she was asking who this young woman was, and why Ralph
had brought her to tea with them. There was an obvious reason, which
Mrs. Denham had probably reached by this time. Outwardly, she was
behaving with rather rusty and laborious civility. She was making
conversation about the amenities of Highgate, its development and
situation.
"When I first married," she said, "Highgate was quite separate from
London, Miss Hilbery, and this house, though you wouldn't believe it,
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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 Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling: in the saddle, riding east or west, and we ate our worn-out
ponies. The people of the town also made us some
trouble till I gathered them all in one quarter behind
Hunno. We broke down the Wall on either side of it to
make as it were a citadel. Our men fought better in close order.
'By the end of the second month we were deep in the
War as a man is deep in a snowdrift, or in a dream. I think
we fought in our sleep. At least I know I have gone on the
Wall and come off again, remembering nothing between,
though my throat was harsh with giving orders, and my
sword, I could see, had been used.
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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 Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy: Care had come. Society might be better than she
supposed from her slight experience of it. But she had
no proof of this, and her instinct in the circumstances
was to avoid its purlieus.
The small dairies to the west, beyond Port-Bredy, in
which she had served as supernumerary milkmaid during
the spring and summer required no further aid. Room
would probably have been made for her at Talbothays,
if only out of sheer compassion; but comfortable as her
life had been there she could not go back. The
anti-climax would be too intolerable; and her return
Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman |
