| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: October, the air was as mild as May, and I slept with the fur
thrown back.
I was much disturbed by the barking of a dog, an animal that I fear
more than any wolf. A dog is vastly braver, and is besides
supported by the sense of duty. If you kill a wolf, you meet with
encouragement and praise; but if you kill a dog, the sacred rights
of property and the domestic affections come clamouring round you
for redress. At the end of a fagging day, the sharp cruel note of
a dog's bark is in itself a keen annoyance; and to a tramp like
myself, he represents the sedentary and respectable world in its
most hostile form. There is something of the clergyman or 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 Summer by Edith Wharton: Charity fancied there was a worried expression in
her pale-lashed eyes. She took a seat near Miss
Hatchard and it was presently apparent that she did not
mean to dance. Charity did not dance often either.
Harney explained to her that Miss Hatchard had begged
him to give each of the other girls a turn; but he went
through the form of asking Charity's permission each
time he led one out, and that gave her a sense of
secret triumph even completer than when she was
whirling about the room with him.
She was thinking of all this as she waited for him in
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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 She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith: HASTINGS. If you could but say half the fine things to them that I
have heard you lavish upon the bar-maid of an inn, or even a college
bed-maker----
MARLOW. Why, George, I can't say fine things to them; they freeze,
they petrify me. They may talk of a comet, or a burning mountain, or
some such bagatelle; but, to me, a modest woman, drest out in all her
finery, is the most tremendous object of the whole creation.
HASTINGS. Ha! ha! ha! At this rate, man, how can you ever expect to
marry?
MARLOW. Never; unless, as among kings and princes, my bride were to be
courted by proxy. If, indeed, like an Eastern bridegroom, one were to
She Stoops to Conquer |
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 An International Episode by Henry James: What is a poor unprotected American woman to do in a country
where she is liable to have that sort of thing said to her?"
"You seem to get hold of some very queer old ladies;
I compliment you on your acquaintance!" Percy Beaumont exclaimed.
"If you are trying to bring me to admit that London is an
odious place, you'll not succeed. I'm extremely fond of it,
and I think it the jolliest place in the world."
"Pour vous autres. I never said the contrary," Mrs. Westgate retorted.
I make use of this expression, because both interlocutors had begun
to raise their voices. Percy Beaumont naturally did not like to hear
his country abused, and Mrs. Westgate, no less naturally, did not like
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