| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Westward Ho! by Charles Kingsley: confessing that the poor fellow spoke truly when he swore that she
had threatened to kill him, and that he had given her the wine in
bodily fear for his life.
However, her own headache and Amyas's cold looks were lesson
enough, and after another attempt to drown herself, the wilful
beauty settled down for awhile; and what was better, could hardly
be persuaded, thenceforth to her dying day, to touch fermented
liquors.
But, in the meanwhile, poor Amyas had many a brains-beating as to
how he was to tame a lady who, on the least provocation, took
refuge in suicide. Punish her he dared not, even if he had the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: qualities--so much so that the expression of that approval bid fair to
make it difficult for him to quit the town, seeing that, wherever he
went, the one phrase dinned into his ears was "Stay another week with
us, Paul Ivanovitch." In short, he ceased to be a free agent. But
incomparably more striking was the impression (a matter for unbounded
surprise!) which he produced upon the ladies. Properly to explain this
phenomenon I should need to say a great deal about the ladies
themselves, and to describe in the most vivid of colours their social
intercourse and spiritual qualities. Yet this would be a difficult
thing for me to do, since, on the one hand, I should be hampered by my
boundless respect for the womenfolk of all Civil Service officials,
Dead Souls |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Helen of Troy And Other Poems by Sara Teasdale: And men with wisdom or with little wit
Implore the gods that mercy may abound.
Ah, Aphrodite, was it not from thee
My summons came across the endless spaces?
Mother of Love, turn not thy face from me
Now that I seek for thee in human faces;
Answer my prayer or set my spirit free
Again to drift along the starry places.
Galahad in the Castle of the Maidens
(To the maiden with the hidden face in Abbey's painting)
The other maidens raised their eyes to him
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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 Damaged Goods by Upton Sinclair: it was he who had spoken those frenzied words; and yet he must
have spoken them, because he remembered them. He remembered that
it had taken a long time to persuade her. He had had to promise
her a ring like the one her married friend wore. Before they
entered her home she had made him take off his shoes, so that the
porter might not hear them. This had struck George particularly,
because, even flushed with excitement as he was, he had not
forgotten the warnings his father had given him as to the dangers
of contact with strange women. He had thought to himself, "This
girl must be safe. It is probably the first time she has ever
done such a thing."
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