| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Spirit of the Border by Zane Grey: agitated, perhaps, by a faint breeze. No; that wavering line came straight
toward him; it could not be the wind; it marked the course of a creeping,
noiseless thing. It must be a panther crawling nearer and nearer.
Joe opened his lips to awaken his captors, but could not speak; it was as if
his heart had stopped beating. Twenty feet away the ferns were parted to
disclose a white, gleaming face, with eyes that seemingly glittered. Brawny
shoulders were upraised, and then a tall, powerful man stood revealed. Lightly
he stepped over the leaves into the little glade. He bent over the sleeping
Indians. Once, twice, three times a long blade swung high. One brave shuddered
another gave a sobbing gasp, and the third moved two fingers--thus they passed
from life to death.
The Spirit of the Border |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: their murmurs and their stirrings; the hives, which were people.
Mrs Ramsay rose. Lily rose. Mrs Ramsay went. For days there hung about
her, as after a dream some subtle change is felt in the person one has
dreamt of, more vividly than anything she said, the sound of murmuring
and, as she sat in the wicker arm-chair in the drawing-room window she
wore, to Lily's eyes, an august shape; the shape of a dome.
This ray passed level with Mr Bankes's ray straight to Mrs Ramsay sitting
reading there with James at her knee. But now while she still looked,
Mr Bankes had done. He had put on his spectacles. He had stepped back.
He had raised his hand. He had slightly narrowed his clear blue eyes,
when Lily, rousing herself, saw what he was at, and winced like a dog who
To the Lighthouse |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The School For Scandal by Richard Brinsley Sheridan: MRS. CANDOUR. For my Part I own I cannot bear to hear a friend
ill-spoken of?
SIR PETER. No, to be sure!
SIR BENJAMIN. Ah you are of a moral turn Mrs. Candour and can sit
for an hour to hear Lady Stucco talk sentiments.
LADY SNEERWELL. Nay I vow Lady Stucco is very well with the Dessert
after Dinner for she's just like the Spanish Fruit one cracks
for mottoes--made up of Paint and Proverb.
MRS. CANDOUR. Well, I never will join in ridiculing a Friend--
and so I constantly tell my cousin Ogle--and you all know what
pretensions she has to be critical in Beauty.
|
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 Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy: one o'clock precisely.'"
Chauvelin looked up at the clock just above the mantelpiece.
"Then I have plenty of time," he said placidly.
"What are you going to do?" she asked.
She was pale as a statue, her hands were icy cold, her head
and heart throbbed with the awful strain upon her nerves. Oh, this
was cruel! cruel! What had she done to have deserved all this? Her
choice was made: had she done a vile action or one that was sublime?
The recording angel, who writes in the book of gold, alone could give
an answer.
"What are you going to do?" she repeated mechanically.
The Scarlet Pimpernel |
