| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from In the Cage by Henry James: time, face to face outside the cage. Alas! they were face to face
but a second or two: she was whirled out on the wings of a panic
fear that he might just then be entering or issuing. This fear was
indeed, in her shameless deflexions, never very far from her, and
was mixed in the oddest way with depressions and disappointments.
It was dreadful, as she trembled by, to run the risk of looking to
him as if she basely hung about; and yet it was dreadful to be
obliged to pass only at such moments as put an encounter out of the
question.
At the horrible hour of her first coming to Cocker's he was always-
-it was to be hoped--snug in bed; and at the hour of her final
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Witch, et. al by Anton Chekhov: assistant, with faces wet with dew, were drinking tea from a
dirty tin teapot. The carriages, the platforms, the seats were
all wet and cold. Until the train came in the student stood at
the buffet drinking tea while the postman, with his hands thrust
up his sleeves and the same look of anger still on his face,
paced up and down the platform in solitude, staring at the ground
under his feet.
With whom was he angry? Was it with people, with poverty, with
the autmn nights?
THE NEW VILLA
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 A Lover's Complaint by William Shakespeare: Which one by one she in a river threw,
Upon whose weeping margent she was set;
Like usury applying wet to wet,
Or monarchs' hands, that lets not bounty fall
Where want cries 'some,' but where excess begs all.
Of folded schedules had she many a one,
Which she perus'd, sigh'd, tore, and gave the flood;
Crack'd many a ring of posied gold and bone,
Bidding them find their sepulchres in mud;
Found yet mo letters sadly penn'd in blood,
With sleided silk feat and affectedly
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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 Herodias by Gustave Flaubert: Antipas explained that they had been invited to come to a feast in
celebration of his birthday; and he pointed to several men who,
leaning against the battlements, were hauling up immense basket-loads
of food, fruits, vegetables, antelopes, and storks; large fish, of a
brilliant shade of blue; grapes, melons, and pyramids of pomegranates.
At this sight, Aulus left the courtyard and hastened to the kitchens,
led by his taste for gormandizing, which later became the amazement of
the world.
As they passed the opening to a small cellar, Vitellius perceived some
objects resembling breast-plates hanging on a wall. He looked at them
with interest, and then demanded that the subterranean chambers of the
Herodias |
