| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy: the fault of taking that." (The hand she had offered
dropped nervelessly, but the tears continued flowing.)
"Well, yes, I'll take it, if only for the sake of my own
foolish kisses that were wasted there before I knew
what I cherished. How bewitched I was! How could there
be any good in a woman that everybody spoke ill of?"
"O, O, O!" she cried, breaking down at last; and, shaking
with sobs which choked her, she sank upon her knees.
"O, will you have done! O, you are too relentless--there's
a limit to the cruelty of savages! I have held out long--but
you crush me down. I beg for mercy--I cannot bear this
Return of the Native |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Coxon Fund by Henry James: a finger on Mr. Saltram. There was nothing to plead but that our
scouts had been out from the early hours and that we were afraid
that on one of his walks abroad--he took one, for meditation,
whenever he was to address such a company--some accident had
disabled or delayed him. The meditative walks were a fiction, for
he never, that any one could discover, prepared anything but a
magnificent prospectus; hence his circulars and programmes, of
which I possess an almost complete collection, are the solemn
ghosts of generations never born. I put the case, as it seemed to
me, at the best; but I admit I had been angry, and Kent Mulville
was shocked at my want of public optimism. This time therefore I
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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 Verses 1889-1896 by Rudyard Kipling: It's much too wet for shootin', we can only march and think;
An' at evenin', down the ~nullahs~, we can 'ear the jackals say,
"Get up, you rotten beggars, you've ten more to-day!"
'Twould make a monkey cough to see our way o' doin' things --
Lieutenants takin' companies an' captains takin' wings,
An' Lances actin' Sergeants -- eight file to obey --
For we've lots o' quick promotion on ten deaths a day!
Our Colonel's white an' twitterly -- 'e gets no sleep nor food,
But mucks about in 'orspital where nothing does no good.
Verses 1889-1896 |
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 Secret Places of the Heart by H. G. Wells: adhesive. Nervously so. If we were indeed living in a new age
Instead of the moral ruins of a shattered one--"
"We can't alter the age we live in," said Sir Richmond a
little testily.
"No. Exactly. But we CAN realize, in any particular
situation, that it is not the individuals to blame but the
misfit of ideas and forms and prejudices."
"No," said Sir Richmond, obstinately rejecting this pacifying
suggestion; "she could adapt herself. If she cared enough."
"But how?"
"She will not take the slightest trouble to adjust herself to
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