| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells: life takes advantage of youth. You don't understand."
"Perhaps I don't."
"You don't. That's the difficulty. If I told you the facts, I
expect, since you are in love with me, you'd explain the whole
business as being very fine and honorable for me--the Higher
Morality, or something of that sort. . . . It wasn't."
"I don't deal very much," said Ann Veronica, "in the Higher
Morality, or the Higher Truth, or any of those things."
"Perhaps you don't. But a human being who is young and clean, as
you are, is apt to ennoble--or explain away."
"I've had a biological training. I'm a hard young woman."
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Montezuma's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard: The man heard me; he turned livid beneath his bronzed skin and
staggered until I thought that he would have fallen. He stared
upon me, with terror in his eye, to see as he believed a common
sight enough, that of an Indian chief rejoicing at the death of one
of his oppressors.
'What devil are you,' he said hoarsely, 'sent from hell to torment
me at the last?'
'Remember the dying prayer of Isabella de Siguenza, whom you struck
and cursed,' I answered mocking. 'Seek not to know whence I am,
but remember this only, now and for ever.'
For a moment he stood still, heedless of the urgings of his
Montezuma's Daughter |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy: Nekhludoff, and twisting the terribly thin, sinewy neck,
surrounded by the shabby, crumpled, dirty collar of her bodice.
Nekhludoff asked her how she came to be in prison.
In answer she began relating all about her affairs with great
animation. Her speech was intermingled with a great many long
words, such as propaganda, disorganisation, social groups,
sections and sub-sections, about which she seemed to think
everybody knew, but which Nekhludoff had never heard of.
She told him all the secrets of the Nardovolstvo, [literally,
"People's Freedom," a revolutionary movement] evidently
convinced that he was pleased to hear them. Nekhludoff looked at
Resurrection |
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 Economist by Xenophon: places for the several things and memory to take and place them there.
We know, I fancy, that the goods of various sorts contained in the
whole city far outnumber ours many thousand times; and yet you have
only to bid any one of your domestics go buy this, or that, and bring
it you from market, and not one of them will hesitate. The whole world
knows both where to go and where to find each thing.
[39] Lit. "now whether these things I say are true (i.e. are facts),
we can make experiment of the things themselves (i.e. of actual
facts to prove to us)."
"And why is this?" I asked. "Merely because they lie in an appointed
place. But now, if you are seeking for a human being, and that too at
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