| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Emma by Jane Austen: would be any thing, or that there would be the smallest difficulty
in every body's returning into their proper place the next morning.
He argued like a young man very much bent on dancing; and Emma
was rather surprized to see the constitution of the Weston prevail
so decidedly against the habits of the Churchills. He seemed to have
all the life and spirit, cheerful feelings, and social inclinations
of his father, and nothing of the pride or reserve of Enscombe.
Of pride, indeed, there was, perhaps, scarcely enough; his indifference
to a confusion of rank, bordered too much on inelegance of mind.
He could be no judge, however, of the evil he was holding cheap.
It was but an effusion of lively spirits.
Emma |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Plain Tales from the Hills by Rudyard Kipling: place. All the world was only the two Copleigh girls, Saumarez and
I, ringed in with the lightning and the dark; and the guidance of
this misguided world seemed to lie in my hands.
When we returned to the tomb in the deep, dead stillness that
followed the storm, the dawn was just breaking and nobody had gone
away. They were waiting for our return. Saumarez most of all.
His face was white and drawn. As Miss Copleigh and I limped up, he
came forward to meet us, and, when he helped her down from her
saddle, he kissed her before all the picnic. It was like a scene
in a theatre, and the likeness was heightened by all the dust-
white, ghostly-looking men and women under the orange-trees,
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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 Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac: no need of such incentives to interest you and attach you to me.
I will now reply to the second edition, considerably enlarged, of
your first sermon.
Will you have a confession? I said to myself when I saw you so
distrustful, and mistaking me for Corinne (whose improvisations
bore me dreadfully), that in all probability dozes of Muses had
already led you, rashly curious, into their valleys, and begged
you to taste the fruits of their boarding-school Parnassus. Oh!
you are perfectly safe with me, my friend; I may love poetry, but
I have no little verses in my pocket-book, and my stockings are,
and will remain, immaculately white. You shall not be pestered
Modeste Mignon |
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 Three Taverns by Edwin Arlington Robinson: Or for God's sake, what's broke loose? Have you a bee-hive in your head?
A little more of this from you will not be easy hearing.
Do you know that? Understand it, if you do; for if you won't. . . .
What the devil are you saying! Make believe you never said it,
And I'll say I never heard it. . . . Oh, you. . . . If you. . . ."
"If I don't?"
"There are men who say there's reason hidden somewhere in a woman,
But I doubt if God himself remembers where the key was hung."
"He may not; for they say that even God himself is growing.
I wonder if he makes believe that he is growing young;
I wonder if he makes believe that women who are giving
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