| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner: the first wagon stuck fast. I tried for a little while to urge the oxen,
but I soon saw the one span could never pull it up. I went to the other
wagon to loosen that span to join them on in front, but the transport-
rider, who was lying at the back of the wagon, jumped out.
"'They shall bring it up the hill; and if half of them die for it they
shall do it alone,' he said.
"He was not drunk, but in bad temper, for he had been drunk the night
before. He swore at me, and told me to take the whip and help him. We
tried for a little time, then I told him it was no use, they could never do
it. He swore louder and called to the leaders to come on with their whips,
and together they lashed. There was one ox, a black ox, so thin that the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: Evidently the appetite for more ivory had got the better of the--
what shall I say?--less material aspirations. However he had
got much worse suddenly. `I heard he was lying helpless,
and so I came up--took my chance,' said the Russian.
`Oh, he is bad, very bad.' I directed my glass to the house.
There were no signs of life, but there was the ruined roof,
the long mud wall peeping above the grass, with three
little square window-holes, no two of the same size;
all this brought within reach of my hand, as it were.
And then I made a brusque movement, and one of the remaining
posts of that vanished fence leaped up in the field of my glass.
Heart of Darkness |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain: started, but their bullets whizzed by and didn't do us
any harm. As soon as we lost the sound of their feet
we quit chasing, and went down and stirred up the
constables. They got a posse together, and went off
to guard the river bank, and as soon as it is light the
sheriff and a gang are going to beat up the woods. My
boys will be with them presently. I wish we had
some sort of description of those rascals -- 'twould help
a good deal. But you couldn't see what they were
like, in the dark, lad, I suppose?"
"Oh yes; I saw them down-town and follered
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer |
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 Options by O. Henry: Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. It
is an exhaustive treatise, dealing first with the primitive
conceptions of beauty--roundness and smoothness, I think they are,
according to Burke. It is well said. Rotundity is a patent charm; as
for smoothness--the more new wrinkles a woman acquires, the smoother
she becomes.
Ileen was a strictly vegetable compound, guaranteed under the Pure
Ambrosia and Balm-of-Gilead Act of the year of the fall of Adam. She
was a fruit-stand blonde-strawberries, peaches, cherries, etc. Her
eyes were wide apart, and she possessed the calm that precedes a storm
that never comes. But it seems to me that words (at any rate per) are
Options |
