| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte: Instead of finding her outside, I heard her voice within. The
little monkey had crept by the skylight of one garret, along the
roof, into the skylight of the other, and it was with the utmost
difficulty I could coax her out again. When she did come,
Heathcliff came with her, and she insisted that I should take him
into the kitchen, as my fellow-servant had gone to a neighbour's,
to be removed from the sound of our 'devil's psalmody,' as it
pleased him to call it. I told them I intended by no means to
encourage their tricks: but as the prisoner had never broken his
fast since yesterday's dinner, I would wink at his cheating Mr.
Hindley that once. He went down: I set him a stool by the fire,
Wuthering Heights |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Royalty Restored/London Under Charles II by J. Fitzgerald Molloy: of Edward Hyde, Lord Clarendon's Life."
Without the advice of his council, the king could give no
satisfactory reply to his brother. He therefore summoned two of
his trusty friends, the Marquis of Ormond and the Earl of
Southampton, whom he informed of the duke's marriage, requesting
them to communicate the same to the chancellor, and return with
him for private consultation. The good man's surprise at this
news concerning his daughter was, according to his own account,
exceeding great, and was only equalled by his vast indignation.
His loyalty towards the royal family was so fervent that it
overlooked his affection to his child. He therefore fell into a
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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 Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: frightened when they were seized upon and bound; and afraid, like
the women, that they should be murdered and eaten: for it seems
those people think all the world does as they do, in eating men's
flesh; but they were soon made easy as to that, and away they
carried them.
It was very happy for them that they did not carry them home to the
castle, I mean to my palace under the hill; but they carried them
first to the bower, where was the chief of their country work, such
as the keeping the goats, the planting the corn, &c.; and afterward
they carried them to the habitation of the two Englishmen. Here
they were set to work, though it was not much they had for them to
Robinson Crusoe |
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 Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: Monsieur Vernier and the apostle of Saint-Simonism. Never before had
the tragic event of a duel been so much as heard of in that benign and
happy valley.
"Monsieur Mitouflet, I am to fight to-morrow with Monsieur Vernier,"
said Gaudissart to his landlord. "I know no one here: will you be my
second?"
"Willingly," said the host.
Gaudissart had scarcely finished his dinner before Madame Fontanieu
and the assistant-mayor of Vouvray came to the Soleil d'Or and took
Mitouflet aside. They told him it would be a painful and injurious
thing to the whole canton if a violent death were the result of this
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