| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Dream Life and Real Life by Olive Schreiner: her.
On the left bank rose a chain of kopjes and a precipice of rocks. Between
the precipice and the river bank there was a narrow path covered by the
fragments of fallen rock. And upon the summit of the precipice a kippersol
tree grew, whose palm-like leaves were clearly cut out against the night
sky. The rocks cast a deep shadow, and the willow trees, on either side of
the river. She paused, looked up and about her, and then ran on, fearful.
"What was I afraid of? How foolish I have been!" she said, when she came
to a place where the trees were not so close together. And she stood still
and looked back and shivered.
At last her steps grew wearier and wearier. She was very sleepy now, she
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte: I thought, was reversing the order of things; and I found it doubly
disagreeable, as on this as well as subsequent occasions, they
seemed to prefer the dirtiest places and the most dismal
occupations. But there was no remedy; either I must follow them,
or keep entirely apart from them, and thus appear neglectful of my
charge. To-day, they manifested a particular attachment to a well
at the bottom of the lawn, where they persisted in dabbling with
sticks and pebbles for above half an hour. I was in constant fear
that their mother would see them from the window, and blame me for
allowing them thus to draggle their clothes and wet their feet and
hands, instead of taking exercise; but no arguments, commands, or
Agnes Grey |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Phantasmagoria and Other Poems by Lewis Carroll: Then you can have him changed.
"But if the host's a man like you -
I mean a man of sense;
And if the house is not too new - "
"Why, what has THAT," said I, "to do
With Ghost's convenience?"
"A new house does not suit, you know -
It's such a job to trim it:
But, after twenty years or so,
The wainscotings begin to go,
So twenty is the limit."
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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 The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad: not like the work he had to do now. He felt himself dependent on
too many subordinates and too many masters. The near presence of
that strange emotional phenomenon called public opinion weighed
upon his spirits, and alarmed him by its irrational nature. No
doubt that from ignorance he exaggerated to himself its power for
good and evil - especially for evil; and the rough east winds of
the English spring (which agreed with his wife) augmented his
general mistrust of men's motives and of the efficiency of their
organisation. The futility of office work especially appalled him
on those days so trying to his sensitive liver.
He got up, unfolding himself to his full height, and with a
The Secret Agent |
