| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic: all right.
With a soft, maternal touch, she smoothed the hair from
his forehead into order. Then she seated herself, and,
when he got his hand out from under the robe and thrust
it forth timidly, she took it in hers and held it in
a warm, sympathetic grasp. He closed his eyes at this,
and gradually the paroxysmal catch in his breathing lapsed.
The daylight strengthened, until at last tiny flecks
of sunshine twinkled in the meshes of the further
curtains at the window. She fancied him asleep,
and gently sought to disengage her hand, but his fingers
The Damnation of Theron Ware |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells: She fell to rubbing her insulted lips savagely with the back of
her hand. "Ugh!" she said.
"The young women of Jane Austen's time didn't get into this sort
of scrape! At least--one thinks so. . . . I wonder if some of
them did--and it didn't get reported. Aunt Jane had her quiet
moments. Most of them didn't, anyhow. They were properly
brought up, and sat still and straight, and took the luck fate
brought them as gentlewomen should. And they had an idea of what
men were like behind all their nicety. They knew they were all
Bogey in disguise. I didn't! I didn't! After all--"
For a time her mind ran on daintiness and its defensive
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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 My Antonia by Willa Cather: He was always talking about fellows who had got ahead that way."
`I asked her, of course, why she didn't insist on a civil marriage at once--
that would have given her some hold on him. She leaned her head on
her hands, poor child, and said, "I just don't know, Mrs. Steavens.
I guess my patience was wore out, waiting so long. I thought if he saw
how well I could do for him, he'd want to stay with me."
`Jimmy, I sat right down on that bank beside her and made lament.
I cried like a young thing. I couldn't help it.
I was just about heart-broke. It was one of them lovely warm
May days, and the wind was blowing and the colts jumping
around in the pastures; but I felt bowed with despair.
My Antonia |
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 Phaedo by Plato: irresistible blasts: when the waters retire with a rush into the lower
parts of the earth, as they are called, they flow through the earth in
those regions, and fill them up like water raised by a pump, and then when
they leave those regions and rush back hither, they again fill the hollows
here, and when these are filled, flow through subterranean channels and
find their way to their several places, forming seas, and lakes, and
rivers, and springs. Thence they again enter the earth, some of them
making a long circuit into many lands, others going to a few places and not
so distant; and again fall into Tartarus, some at a point a good deal lower
than that at which they rose, and others not much lower, but all in some
degree lower than the point from which they came. And some burst forth
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