| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane: A group of urchins were intent upon the side door of a saloon.
Expectancy gleamed from their eyes. They were twisting their
fingers in excitement.
"Here she comes," yelled one of them suddenly.
The group of urchins burst instantly asunder and its
individual fragments were spread in a wide, respectable half circle
about the point of interest. The saloon door opened with a crash,
and the figure of a woman appeared upon the threshold. Her grey
hair fell in knotted masses about her shoulders. Her face was
crimsoned and wet with perspiration. Her eyes had a rolling glare.
"Not a damn cent more of me money will yehs ever get, not a damn cent.
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: periwig-maker to the play-actor--who like them had seen the
frivolity, the baseness, the profligacy, of the rulers to whose
vices they pandered, whom they despised while they adored! Figaro
himself may have looked up to his master the Marquis as a superior
being as long as the law enabled the Marquis to send him to the
Bastile by a lettre de cachet; yet Figaro may have known and seen
enough to excuse him, when lettres de cachet were abolished, for
handing the Marquis over to a Comite de Salut Public. Disappointed
play-actors, like Collet d'Herbois; disappointed poets, like Fabre
d'Olivet, were, they say, especially ferocious. Why not?
Ingenious, sensitive spirits, used as lap-dogs and singing-birds by
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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 Lair of the White Worm by Bram Stoker: he spoke, and that old friend's eyes blazed.
"Ay, three of us," he said, and his voice rang.
There was again a pause, and Sir Nathaniel endeavoured to get back
to less emotional and more neutral ground.
"Tell us of the rest of the meeting. Remember we are all pledged to
this. It is a fight E L'OUTRANCE, and we can afford to throw away
or forgo no chance."
"We shall throw away or lose nothing that we can help. We fight to
win, and the stake is a life--perhaps more than one--we shall see."
Then he went on in a conversational tone, such as he had used when
he spoke of the coming to the farm of Edgar Caswall: "When Mr.
Lair of the White Worm |
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: and his face fresh, his blue eyes pale, and a little prominent, his
expression inscrutable, but well-bred. Hilda thought it sulky and
stupid, and he waited. He had an air of aplomb, but Hilda didn't care
what he had an air of; she was up in arms, and if he'd been Pope or
Emperor it would have been just the same.
'Connie's looking awfully unwell,' she said in her soft voice, fixing
him with her beautiful, glowering grey eyes. She looked so maidenly, so
did Connie; but he well knew the tone of Scottish obstinacy underneath.
'She's a little thinner,' he said.
'Haven't you done anything about it?'
'Do you think it necessary?' he asked, with his suavest English
Lady Chatterley's Lover |
