| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy: Breathless with joy, Pierre ran to the little girl and was going
to take her in his arms. But seeing a stranger the sickly,
scrofulous-looking child, unattractively like her mother, began to
yell and run away. Pierre, however, seized her and lifted her in his
arms. She screamed desperately and angrily and tried with her little
hands to pull Pierre's hands away and to bite them with her slobbering
mouth. Pierre was seized by a sense of horror and repulsion such as he
had experienced when touching some nasty little animal. But he made an
effort not to throw the child down and ran with her to the large
house. It was now, however, impossible to get back the way he had
come; the maid, Aniska, was no longer there, and Pierre with a feeling
War and Peace |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tom Sawyer Abroad by Mark Twain: "No, I haven't."
I see myself there warn't no sense in the tale, to
chop square off that way before it come to anything,
but I warn't going to say so, because I could see Tom
was souring up pretty fast over the way it flatted out
and the way Jim had popped on to the weak place in
it, and I don't think it's fair for everybody to pile on
to a feller when he's down. But Tom he whirls on
me and says:
"What do YOU think of the tale?"
Of course, then, I had to come out and make a clean
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Soul of Man by Oscar Wilde: made things monstrous in their monotony of repetition, and
contemptible in their conformity to rule, and destroyed throughout
all France all those fine freedoms of expression that had made
tradition new in beauty, and new modes one with antique form. But
the past is of no importance. The present is of no importance. It
is with the future that we have to deal. For the past is what man
should not have been. The present is what man ought not to be.
The future is what artists are.
It will, of course, be said that such a scheme as is set forth here
is quite unpractical, and goes against human nature. This is
perfectly true. It is unpractical, and it goes against human
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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 The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy: street, giving strong expression to a song of his dear
native country that he loved so well as never to have
revisited it. Idlers were standing on the pavement in
front; and wishing to escape the notice of these Henchard
passed quickly on to the door.
It was wide open, the hall was lighted extravagantly, and
people were going up and down the stairs. His courage
failed him; to enter footsore, laden, and poorly dressed
into the midst of such resplendency was to bring needless
humiliation upon her he loved, if not to court repulse from
her husband. Accordingly he went round into the street at
The Mayor of Casterbridge |
