| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Adam Bede by George Eliot: down again to lift up Arthur's head.
"No," said Arthur, "dip my cravat in and souse it on my head."
The water seemed to do him some good, for he presently raised
himself a little higher, resting on Adam's arm.
"Do you feel any hurt inside sir?" Adam asked again
"No--no hurt," said Arthur, still faintly, "but rather done up."
After a while he said, "I suppose I fainted away when you knocked
me down."
"Yes, sir, thank God," said Adam. "I thought it was worse."
"What! You thought you'd done for me, eh? Come help me on my
legs."
Adam Bede |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A House of Pomegranates by Oscar Wilde: leapt from crag to crag, being sure-footed as a wild goat, and at
last he reached the level ground and the yellow shore of the sea.
Bronze-limbed and well-knit, like a statue wrought by a Grecian, he
stood on the sand with his back to the moon, and out of the foam
came white arms that beckoned to him, and out of the waves rose dim
forms that did him homage. Before him lay his shadow, which was
the body of his soul, and behind him hung the moon in the honey-
coloured air.
And his Soul said to him, 'If indeed thou must drive me from thee,
send me not forth without a heart. The world is cruel, give me thy
heart to take with me.'
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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 The Complete Poems of Longfellow by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: And, holding it above his head, drink from it.
HATHORNE.
That is enough; we need not question further.
What answer do you make to this, Giles Corey?
MARY.
See there! See there!
HATHORNE.
What is it? I see nothing.
MARY.
Look! Look! It is the ghost of Robert Goodell,
Whom fifteen years ago this man did murder
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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 A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: two and two together, to writers, who foresee and tell all that they
see; accustomed also to the ways of certain political personages, who
watched one another in her house, and profited by all admissions,
Florine presented in her own person a mixture of devil and angel,
which made her peculiarly fitted to receive these roues. They
delighted in her cool self-possession; her anomalies of mind and heart
entertained them prodigiously. Her house, enriched by gallant
tributes, displayed the exaggerated magnificence of women who, caring
little about the cost of things, care only for the things themselves,
and give them the value of their own caprices,--women who will break a
fan or a smelling-bottle fit for queens in a moment of passion, and
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