| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley: brimming over with tears.
"Oh, Tom, Tom!" she said, very mournfully - and then she cried,
"Oh, Tom! where are you?"
And Tom cried, "Oh, Ellie, where are you?"
For neither of them could see each other - not the least. Little
Ellie vanished quite away, and Tom heard her voice calling him, and
growing smaller and smaller, and fainter and fainter, till all was
silent.
Who was frightened then but Tom? He swam up and down among the
rocks, into all the halls and chambers, faster than ever he swam
before, but could not find her. He shouted after her, but she did
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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: It was Mrs Bolton's talk that really put a new fight into Clifford. His
income, as she pointed out to him, was secure, from his father's trust,
even though it was not large. The pits did not really concern him. It
was the other world he wanted to capture, the world of literature and
fame; the popular world, not the working world.
Now he realized the distinction between popular success and working
success: the populace of pleasure and the populace of work. He, as a
private individual, had been catering with his stories for the populace
of pleasure. And he had caught on. But beneath the populace of pleasure
lay the populace of work, grim, grimy, and rather terrible. They too
had to have their providers. And it was a much grimmer business,
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 Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: after the appointed hour, yet the following morning saw the coat and
breeches completed; and while the horses were being put to, Chichikov
tried on the clothes, and found them equal to the previous creation,
even though during the process he caught sight of a bald patch on his
head, and was led mournfully to reflect: "Alas! Why did I give way to
such despair? Surely I need not have torn my hair out so freely?"
Then, when the tailor had been paid, our hero left the town. But no
longer was he the old Chichikov--he was only a ruin of what he had
been, and his frame of mind might have been compared to a building
recently pulled down to make room for a new one, while the new one had
not yet been erected owing to the non-receipt of the plans from the
Dead Souls |
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 Soul of a Bishop by H. G. Wells: altars, confessional boxes, requests for prayers for the
departed, and the like. There had already been two Kensitite
demonstrations at his services, and altogether he was a source of
considerable anxiety to the bishop. The bishop did his best not
to know too exactly what was going on at Mogham Banks. Sooner or
later he felt he would be forced to do something--and the
longer he could put that off the better. But the Rev. Morrice
Deans had promised to get together three or four prominent labour
leaders for tea and a frank talk, and the opportunity was one not
to be missed. So the bishop, after a hasty and not too digestible
lunch in the refreshment room at Pringle, was now in a fly that
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