| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy: The site chosen for the village festivity was one of the
lawnlike oases which were occasionally, yet not often,
met with on the plateaux of the heath district. The brakes
of furze and fern terminated abruptly round the margin,
and the grass was unbroken. A green cattletrack skirted
the spot, without, however, emerging from the screen of fern,
and this path Eustacia followed, in order to reconnoitre
the group before joining it. The lusty notes of the East
Egdon band had directed her unerringly, and she now
beheld the musicians themselves, sitting in a blue wagon
with red wheels scrubbed as bright as new, and arched
Return of the Native |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Persuasion by Jane Austen: they say again, `Yes, you will,' and there is an end of it."
He got up and moved away.
"What a great traveller you must have been, ma'am!" said Mrs Musgrove
to Mrs Croft.
"Pretty well, ma'am in the fifteen years of my marriage;
though many women have done more. I have crossed the Atlantic
four times, and have been once to the East Indies, and back again,
and only once; besides being in different places about home:
Cork, and Lisbon, and Gibraltar. But I never went beyond the Streights,
and never was in the West Indies. We do not call Bermuda or Bahama,
you know, the West Indies."
Persuasion |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Underground City by Jules Verne: of old Aberfoyle; they were now driven to seek the means
of subsistence elsewhere, and they waited sadly to bid farewell
to the engineer.
James Starr stood upright, at the door of the vast shed in which he had
for so many years superintended the powerful machines of the shaft.
Simon Ford, the foreman of the Dochart pit, then fifty-five years of age,
and other managers and overseers, surrounded him. James Starr took
off his hat. The miners, cap in hand, kept a profound silence.
This farewell scene was of a touching character, not wanting in grandeur.
"My friends," said the engineer, "the time has come for us to separate.
The Aberfoyle mines, which for so many years have united us
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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 Bucolics by Virgil: Then you, Menalcas, in alternate strain:
Alternate strains are to the Muses dear.
DAMOETAS
"From Jove the Muse began; Jove filleth all,
Makes the earth fruitful, for my songs hath care."
MENALCAS
"Me Phoebus loves; for Phoebus his own gifts,
Bays and sweet-blushing hyacinths, I keep."
DAMOETAS
"Gay Galatea throws an apple at me,
Then hies to the willows, hoping to be seen."
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