| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Figure in the Carpet by Henry James: of the discoverer with the discovered. The interval seemed an age,
but late one day I heard a hansom precipitated to my door with the
crash engendered by a hint of liberality. I lived with my heart in
my mouth and accordingly bounded to the window - a movement which
gave me a view of a young lady erect on the footboard of the
vehicle and eagerly looking up at my house. At sight of me she
flourished a paper with a movement that brought me straight down,
the movement with which, in melodramas, handkerchiefs and reprieves
are flourished at the foot of the scaffold.
"Just seen Vereker - not a note wrong. Pressed me to bosom - keeps
me a month." So much I read on her paper while the cabby dropped a
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Herland by Charlotte Gilman: "What are you going to fight WITH--your fists?"
"Yes--or sticks and stones--I'd just like to!" And Terry squared
off and tapped Jeff softly on the jaw. "Just for instance," he said.
"Anyhow," he went on, "we could get back to our machine and clear out."
"If it's there," I cautiously suggested.
"Oh, don't croak, Van! If it isn't there, we'll find our way down
somehow--the boat's there, I guess."
It was hard on Terry, so hard that he finally persuaded us to
consider a plan of escape. It was difficult, it was highly dangerous,
but he declared that he'd go alone if we wouldn't go with him, and of
course we couldn't think of that.
Herland |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Night and Day by Virginia Woolf: explained to her. "There are five spare rooms, even when the boys are
here. Besides, he wouldn't get a room in the village. And he oughtn't
to work if he's overworked."
"But perhaps he doesn't want to see so much of us," Mary thought to
herself, although outwardly she assented, and felt grateful to
Elizabeth for supporting her in what was, of course, her desire. They
were cutting roses at the time, and laying them, head by head, in a
shallow basket.
"If Ralph were here, he'd find this very dull," Mary thought, with a
little shiver of irritation, which led her to place her rose the wrong
way in the basket. Meanwhile, they had come to the end of the path,
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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 An Unsocial Socialist by George Bernard Shaw: trouble you."
"Oh, you will be no greater trouble than you have always been,"
said Mrs. Jansenius calmly, not displeased to see that her
daughter had taken the hint. "You had better go and wash your
face. People may call, and I presume you don't wish to receive
them in that plight. If you meet Arthur on the stairs, please
tell him he may come in."
Henrietta screwed her lips into a curious pout and withdrew.
Arthur then came in and stood at the window in sullen silence,
brooding over his recent expulsion. Suddenly he exclaimed:
"Here's papa, and it's not five o'clock yet!" whereupon his
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