| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: many a day to find out a great stone big enough to cut hollow, and
make fit for a mortar, and could find none at all, except what was
in the solid rock, and which I had no way to dig or cut out; nor
indeed were the rocks in the island of hardness sufficient, but
were all of a sandy, crumbling stone, which neither would bear the
weight of a heavy pestle, nor would break the corn without filling
it with sand. So, after a great deal of time lost in searching for
a stone, I gave it over, and resolved to look out for a great block
of hard wood, which I found, indeed, much easier; and getting one
as big as I had strength to stir, I rounded it, and formed it on
the outside with my axe and hatchet, and then with the help of fire
Robinson Crusoe |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Pierrette by Honore de Balzac: fear to look at Bathilde. Vinet had now possessed himself of Sylvie's
secrets, and saw the force with which she loved the colonel. He fully
understood the struggle of such a passion in the heart of an old maid
who was also in the grasp of religious emotion, and he saw his way to
rid himself of Pierrette and the colonel both by making each the cause
of the other's overthrow.
The next day, after the court had risen, Vinet met the colonel and
Rogron talking a walk together, according to their daily custom.
Whenever the three men were seen in company the whole town talked of
it. This triumvirate, held in horror by the sub-prefect, the
magistracy, and the Tiphaine clique, was, on the other hand, a source
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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 A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy: true feeling, as if confidence now was intolerable. 'I do see
that your reticence towards me in the vault may have been dictated
by prudential considerations.' He concluded artificially, 'It was
a strange thing altogether; but not of much importance, I suppose,
at this distance of time; and it does not concern me now, though I
don't mind hearing your story.'
These words from Knight, uttered with such an air of renunciation
and apparent indifference, prompted Smith to speak on--perhaps
with a little complacency--of his old secret engagement to
Elfride. He told the details of its origin, and the peremptory
words and actions of her father to extinguish their love.
A Pair of Blue Eyes |
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 The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: My early-morning coffee he always drank; and it was all I
dared do for him in that respect.
Every day there was the horrible maneuvering to go through so that my room
and then the bathroom should be done in the usual way. I came to hate
the sight of the steward, to abhor the voice of that harmless man.
I felt that it was he who would bring on the disaster of discovery.
It hung like a sword over our heads.
The fourth day out, I think (we were then working down the east side
of the Gulf of Siam, tack for tack, in light winds and smooth water)--
the fourth day, I say, of this miserable juggling with the unavoidable,
as we sat at our evening meal, that man, whose slightest movement
The Secret Sharer |
