| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence: not, I see red. No, no! But I wanted to have nothing to do with any
woman any more. I wanted to keep to myself: keep my privacy and my
decency.'
He looked pale, and his brows were sombre.
'And were you sorry when I came along?' she asked.
'I was sorry and I was glad.'
'And what are you now?'
'I'm sorry, from the outside: all the complications and the ugliness
and recrimination that's bound to come, sooner or later. That's when my
blood sinks, and I'm low. But when my blood comes up, I'm glad. I'm
even triumphant. I was really getting bitter. I thought there was no
Lady Chatterley's Lover |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic: The midday dinner was a little more than ready when Theron
reached home, and let himself in by the front door.
On Mondays, owing to the moisture and "clutter" of the
weekly washing in the kitchen, the table was laid in the
sitting-room, and as he entered from the hall the partner
of his joys bustled in by the other door, bearing the steaming
platter of corned beef, dumplings, cabbages, and carrots,
with arms bared to the elbows, and a red face. It gave
him great comfort, however, to note that there were no
signs of the morning's displeasure remaining on this face;
and he immediately remembered again those interrupted
The Damnation of Theron Ware |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Beast in the Jungle by Henry James: feeling of an occasion missed; the present would have been so much
better if the other, in the far distance, in the foreign land,
hadn't been so stupidly meagre. There weren't, apparently, all
counted, more than a dozen little old things that had succeeded in
coming to pass between them; trivialities of youth, simplicities of
freshness, stupidities of ignorance, small possible germs, but too
deeply buried--too deeply (didn't it seem?) to sprout after so many
years. Marcher could only feel he ought to have rendered her some
service--saved her from a capsized boat in the bay or at least
recovered her dressing-bag, filched from her cab in the streets of
Naples by a lazzarone with a stiletto. Or it would have been nice
|
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 Almayer's Folly by Joseph Conrad: bathing-place and heard it as she stood on the tender grass of
the low bank, her robe at her feet, and looked at the reflection
of her figure on the glass-like surface of the creek. Listening
to it she walked slowly back, her wet hair hanging over her
shoulders; laying down to rest under the bright stars, she closed
her eyes to the murmur of the water below, of the warm wind
above; to the voice of nature speaking through the faint noises
of the great forest, and to the song of her own heart.
She heard, but did not understand, and drank in the dreamy joy of
her new existence without troubling about its meaning or its end,
till the full consciousness of life came to her through pain and
Almayer's Folly |
