| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Bab:A Sub-Deb, Mary Roberts Rinehart by Mary Roberts Rinehart: unseemly haste?"
So I told him, and he understood perfectly, although I did not say
that I had already plited my troth.
"Of course," he said. "If that fails there is another method of
aranging things, although you may not care to have the Funeral
Baked Meats set fourth to grace the Marriage Table. If she refuses
me, we might become engaged. You and I."
To proposals in one day. Ye gods!
I was obliged therfore to tell him I was already engaged, and he
looked very queer, especialy when I told him to whom it was.
"Pup!" he said, in a manner which I excused because of his natural
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley: whirr-poof-poof-cock-cock-kick - something went off in his face,
with a most horrid noise. He thought the ground had blown up, and
the end of the world come.
And when he opened his eyes (for he shut them very tight) it was
only an old cock-grouse, who had been washing himself in sand, like
an Arab, for want of water; and who, when Tom had all but trodden
on him, jumped up with a noise like the express train, leaving his
wife and children to shift for themselves, like an old coward, and
went off, screaming "Cur-ru-u-uck, cur-ru-u-uck - murder, thieves,
fire - cur-u-uck-cock-kick - the end of the world is come - kick-
kick-cock-kick." He was always fancying that the end of the world
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from 1984 by George Orwell: peace during his childhood, because one of his early memories was of an air
raid which appeared to take everyone by surprise. Perhaps it was the time
when the atomic bomb had fallen on Colchester. He did not remember the raid
itself, but he did remember his father's hand clutching his own as they
hurried down, down, down into some place deep in the earth, round and round
a spiral staircase which rang under his feet and which finally so wearied
his legs that he began whimpering and they had to stop and rest. His
mother, in her slow, dreamy way, was following a long way behind them. She
was carrying his baby sister--or perhaps it was only a bundle of blankets
that she was carrying: he was not certain whether his sister had been born
then. Finally they had emerged into a noisy, crowded place which he had
1984 |
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 Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac: gratification of his revenge (the hope of which kept him alive) he
loved the touch of money, like Nucingen, who, it was said, kept
fingering the gold in his pockets. The rush of business was
Gaubertin's wine; and though he had his belly full of it, he had all
the eagerness of one who was empty. As with valets of the drama,
intrigues, tricks to play, mischief to organize, deceptions,
commercial over-reachings, accounts to render and receive, disputes,
and quarrels of self-interest, exhilarated him, kept his blood in
circulation, and his bile flowing. He went and came on foot, on
horseback, in a carriage, by water; he was at all auctions and timber
sales in Paris, thinking of everything, keeping hundreds of wires in
|
