| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence: photograph appeared everywhere. There was a bust of him in one of the
galleries, and a portrait of him in two galleries. He seemed the most
modern of modern voices. With his uncanny lame instinct for publicity,
he had become in four or five years one of the best known of the young
'intellectuals'. Where the intellect came in, Connie did not quite see.
Clifford was really clever at that slightly humorous analysis of people
and motives which leaves everything in bits at the end. But it was
rather like puppies tearing the sofa cushions to bits; except that it
was not young and playful, but curiously old, and rather obstinately
conceited. It was weird and it was nothing. This was the feeling that
echoed and re-echoed at the bottom of Connie's soul: it was all flag, a
Lady Chatterley's Lover |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Monster Men by Edgar Rice Burroughs: again upon those experiments which had now been
neglected for the better part of a year the more self
absorbed and moody became the professor. At times he
was scarcely civil to those about him, and never now
did he have a pleasant word or a caress for the
daughter who had been his whole life but a few short
months before.
It often seemed to Virginia when she caught her
father's eyes upon her that there was a gleam of
dislike in them, as though he would have been glad to
have been rid of her that she might not in any way
The Monster Men |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: do something, whereof, to a surety, only one is the right way, it
followeth that he who from indecision standeth still hath not so many
chances of going astray as he who pusheth forwards" -- a most clear
and satisfactory exposition on the matter.
"Your prompt decision to attack," said Genera Grant on a certain
occasion to General Gordon Granger, "was admirable; you had but five
minutes to make up your mind in."
"Yes, sir," answered the victorious subordinate, "it is a great
thing to be know exactly what to do in an emergency. When in doubt
whether to attack or retreat I never hesitate a moment -- I toss us a
copper."
The Devil's Dictionary |
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 Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence: she feared it still, lest if she adored him too much, then she would
lose herself become effaced, and she did not want to be effaced, a
slave, like a savage woman. She must not become a slave. She feared her
adoration, yet she would not at once fight against it. She knew she
could fight it. She had a devil of self-will in her breast that could
have fought the full soft heaving adoration of her womb and crushed it.
She could even now do it, or she thought so, and she could then take up
her passion with her own will.
Ah yes, to be passionate like a Bacchante, like a Bacchanal fleeing
through the woods, to call on Iacchos, the bright phallos that had no
independent personality behind it, but was pure god-servant to the
Lady Chatterley's Lover |
