| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart: skipped out with this gentleman's clothes, and you've probably got
the murderer."
"I went to bed in lower nine," I said, my mind full again of my lost
papers, "and I wakened in number seven. I was up in the night
prowling around, as I was unable to sleep, and I must have gone back
to the wrong berth. Anyhow, until the porter wakened me this morning
I knew nothing of my mistake. In the interval the thief - murderer,
too, perhaps - must have come back, discovered my error, and taken
advantage of it to further his escape."
The inquisitive man looked at me from between narrowed eyelids,
ferret-like.
The Man in Lower Ten |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Chance by Joseph Conrad: many arguments have been knocked over (I won't say knocked down) by
these few words! For if we men try to put the spaciousness of all
experiences into our reasoning and would fain put the Infinite
itself into our love, it isn't, as some writer has remarked, "It
isn't women's doing." Oh no. They don't care for these things.
That sort of aspiration is not much in their way; and it shall be a
funny world, the world of their arranging, where the Irrelevant
would fantastically step in to take the place of the sober humdrum
Imaginative . . . "
I raised my hand to stop my friend Marlow.
"Do you really believe what you have said?" I asked, meaning no
Chance |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence: He stood with his arm round her waist in the inner doorway.
Down the middle of the cleared room waited six chairs, face to face.
In the window, against the lace curtains, Arthur held up one candle,
and by the open door, against the night, Annie stood leaning forward,
her brass candlestick glittering.
There was the noise of wheels. Outside in the darkness of the
street below Paul could see horses and a black vehicle, one lamp,
and a few pale faces; then some men, miners, all in their shirt-sleeves,
seemed to struggle in the obscurity. Presently two men appeared,
bowed beneath a great weight. It was Morel and his neighbour.
"Steady!" called Morel, out of breath.
Sons and Lovers |
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 Recruit by Honore de Balzac: Madame de Dey feared a trap, and she stood motionless; but her face
was on fire, and her tongue stiff in her mouth. A rap sounded on the
door.
"Oh!" cried the mother, falling on her knees, "save him! save him!"
"Yes, we will save him," said the official, giving her a look of
passion; "if it costs us our life, we will save him."
"I am lost!" she murmured, as the prosecutor raised her courteously.
"Madame," he said, with an oratorical movement, "I will owe you only--
to yourself."
"Madame, he has come," cried Brigitte, rushing in and thinking her
mistress was alone.
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