| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Almayer's Folly by Joseph Conrad: She was his, and yet she was like a woman from another world.
His! His! He exulted in the glorious thought; nevertheless her
tears pained him.
With a wisp of her own hair which he took in his hand with timid
reverence he tried in an access of clumsy tenderness to dry the
tears that trembled on her eyelashes. He had his reward in a
fleeting smile that brightened her face for the short fraction of
a second, but soon the tears fell faster than ever, and he could
bear it no more. He rose and walked towards Almayer, who still
sat absorbed in his contemplation of the sea. It was a very,
very long time since he had seen the sea--that sea that leads
Almayer's Folly |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Mucker by Edgar Rice Burroughs: Barbara Harding saw the attack of the fear-demented man,
but she was powerless to prevent it. The mucker saw it too,
and grinned--he hoped that it would be a good fight; there
was nothing that he enjoyed more. He was sorry that he
could not take a hand in it, but the wheel demanded all his
attention now, so that he was even forced to take his eyes
from the combatants that he might rivet them upon the
narrow entrance to the cove toward which the Halfmoon was
now plowing her way at constantly increasing speed.
The other members of the ship's company, all unmindful of
the battle that at another time would have commanded their
The Mucker |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: expansion; this, which fills with a lofty enthusiasm the heart of the young
girl, who, it may be, in some solitary farm-house, in some distant wild of
Africa or America, deep into the night bends over her books with the
passion and fervour with which an early Christian may have bent over the
pages of his Scriptures; feeling that, it may be, she fits herself by each
increase of knowledge for she knows not what duties towards the world, in
the years to come. It is this consciousness of great impersonal ends, to
be brought, even if slowly and imperceptibly, a little nearer by her
action, which gives to many a woman strength for renunciation, when she
puts from her the lower type of sexual relationship, even if bound up with
all the external honour a legal bond can confer, if it offers her only
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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 Intentions by Oscar Wilde: creates for one a past of which one has been ignorant, and fills
one with a sense of sorrows that have been hidden from one's tears.
I can fancy a man who had led a perfectly commonplace life, hearing
by chance some curious piece of music, and suddenly discovering
that his soul, without his being conscious of it, had passed
through terrible experiences, and known fearful joys, or wild
romantic loves, or great renunciations. And so tell me this story,
Ernest. I want to be amused.
ERNEST. Oh! I don't know that it is of any importance. But I
thought it a really admirable illustration of the true value of
ordinary art-criticism. It seems that a lady once gravely asked
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