| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Coxon Fund by Henry James: notice.
"Alone? Gravener has permitted that?"
"What will you have? The House of Commons!"
I'm afraid I cursed the House of Commons: I was so much
interested. Of course he'd follow her as soon as he was free to
make her his wife; only she mightn't now be able to bring him
anything like the marriage-portion of which he had begun by having
the virtual promise. Mrs. Mulville let me know what was already
said: she was charming, this American girl, but really these
American fathers--! What was a man to do? Mr. Saltram, according
to Mrs. Mulville, was of opinion that a man was never to suffer his
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave by Frederick Douglass: unhappiness to me even during childhood. The white
children could tell their ages. I could not tell why I
ought to be deprived of the same privilege. I was
not allowed to make any inquiries of my master con-
cerning it. He deemed all such inquiries on the part
of a slave improper and impertinent, and evidence
of a restless spirit. The nearest estimate I can give
makes me now between twenty-seven and twenty-
eight years of age. I come to this, from hearing my
master say, some time during 1835, I was about
seventeen years old.
The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells: misshapen black-faced attendant, standing in a wide expanse
of sunlit yellow dust under the blazing blue sky, and surrounded
by this circle of crouching and gesticulating monstrosities,--
some almost human save in their subtle expression and gestures,
some like cripples, some so strangely distorted as to resemble nothing
but the denizens of our wildest dreams; and, beyond, the reedy
lines of a canebrake in one direction, a dense tangle of palm-trees
on the other, separating us from the ravine with the huts,
and to the north the hazy horizon of the Pacific Ocean.
"Sixty-two, sixty-three," counted Moreau. "There are four more."
"I do not see the Leopard-man," said I.
The Island of Doctor Moreau |
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: concentrated upon her.
A sound like the snapping of fingers came from the gallery over the
pavilion. Instantly, with one of her movements of bird-like swiftness,
Salome stood erect. The next moment she rapidly passed up a flight of
steps leading to the gallery, and coming to the front of it she leaned
over, smiled upon the tetrarch, and, with an air of almost childlike
naivete, pronounced these words:
"I ask my lord to give me, placed upon a charger, the head of--" She
hesitated, as if not certain of the name; then said: "The head of
Iaokanann!"
The tetrarch sank back in his chair as if stunned.
Herodias |
