| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf: "It is," she replied, emphatically nodding her head. "Invent the steps."
Sure of her melody she marked the rhythm boldly so as to simplify
the way. Helen caught the idea; seized Miss Allan by the arm,
and whirled round the room, now curtseying, now spinning round,
now tripping this way and that like a child skipping through a meadow.
"This is the dance for people who don't know how to dance!"
she cried. The tune changed to a minuet; St. John hopped with
incredible swiftness first on his left leg, then on his right;
the tune flowed melodiously; Hewet, swaying his arms and holding
out the tails of his coat, swam down the room in imitation of the
voluptuous dreamy dance of an Indian maiden dancing before her Rajah.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson: hunner? Mr. Balfour, this makes my heart to burst; the heather is on
fire inside my wame."
"And the plain English of that phrase," said I, "is that the witnesses
are still to lie in prison and you are not to see them?"
"And I am not to see them until Inverary, when the court is set!" cries
he, "and then to hear Prestongrange upon THE ANXIOUS RESPONSIBILITIES
OF HIS OFFICE AND THE GREAT FACILITIES AFFORDED THE DEFENCE! But I'll
begowk them there, Mr. David. I have a plan to waylay the witnesses
upon the road, and see if I cannae get I a little harle of justice out
of the MILITARY MAN NOTORIOUSLY IGNORANT OF THE LAW that shall command
the party."
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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 Schoolmistress and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov: Iona looks as his fare and moves his lips. . . . Apparently he
means to say something, but nothing comes but a sniff.
"What?" inquires the officer.
Iona gives a wry smile, and straining his throat, brings out
huskily: "My son . . . er . . . my son died this week, sir."
"H'm! What did he die of?"
Iona turns his whole body round to his fare, and says:
"Who can tell! It must have been from fever. . . . He lay three
days in the hospital and then he died. . . . God's will."
"Turn round, you devil!" comes out of the darkness. "Have you
gone cracked, you old dog? Look where you are going!"
The Schoolmistress and Other Stories |
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 Tour Through Eastern Counties of England by Daniel Defoe: time for carrying on affairs of this kind is the night, and
sometimes all night, a time as unseasonable as scandalous; add to
this, that the orders of the university admit no such excesses; I
therefore say, as this is the case, it is to the honour of the
whole body of the university that no encouragement is given to them
here.
As to the antiquity of the university in this town, the originals
and founders of the several colleges, their revenues, laws,
government, and governors, they are so effectually and so largely
treated of by other authors, and are so foreign to the familiar
design of these letters, that I refer my readers to Mr. Camden's
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