| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: "Ask me for what? Nothing of the sort, my boy. Marry; I give you my
consent, but as for giving you anything else, I haven't a penny to
bless myself with. Dressing the soil is the ruin of me. These two
years I have been paying money out of pocket for top-dressing, and
taxes, and expenses of all kinds; Government eats up everything,
nearly all the profit goes to the Government. The poor growers have
made nothing these last two seasons. This year things don't look so
bad; and, of course, the beggarly puncheons have gone up to eleven
francs already. We work to put money into the coopers' pockets. Why,
are you going to marry before the vintage?----"
"I only came to ask for your consent, father."
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Bride of Lammermoor by Walter Scott: the situation in which she was placed by her father seemed to
authorise Ravenswood to use it. Yet she made an effort to turn
the conversation, and she succeeded; for the Master also had
advanced farther than he intended, and his conscience had
instantly checked him when he found himself on the verge of
speaking of love to the daughter of Sir William Ashton.
They now approached the hut of Old Alice, which had of late been
rendered more comfortable, and presented an appearance less
picturesque, perhaps, but far neater than before. The old woman
was on her accustomed seat beneath the weeping birch, basking,
with the listless enjoyment of age and infirmity, in the beams of
The Bride of Lammermoor |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Grimm's Fairy Tales by Brothers Grimm: Time passed on; and as the eldest son did not come back, and no
tidings were heard of him, the second son set out, and the same thing
happened to him. He met the fox, who gave him the good advice: but
when he came to the two inns, his eldest brother was standing at the
window where the merrymaking was, and called to him to come in; and he
could not withstand the temptation, but went in, and forgot the golden
bird and his country in the same manner.
Time passed on again, and the youngest son too wished to set out into
the wide world to seek for the golden bird; but his father would not
listen to it for a long while, for he was very fond of his son, and
was afraid that some ill luck might happen to him also, and prevent
Grimm's Fairy Tales |
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 Youth by Joseph Conrad: sparkling round the ship, and black, black as ink farther
away; he looked at the stars shining dim through a thin
veil of smoke in a sky black, black as Erebus.
"'Youngest first,' he said.
"And the ordinary seaman, wiping his mouth with the
back of his hand, got up, clambered over the taffrail, and
vanished. Others followed. One, on the point of going
over, stopped short to drain his bottle, and with a great
swing of his arm flung it at the fire. 'Take this!' he
cried.
"The skipper lingered disconsolately, and we left him
Youth |
