| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from McTeague by Frank Norris: and cocoanuts, and mixed nuts, and raisins, and fruit, and
tea, and coffee, and mineral waters, and lemonade.
For two hours the guests ate; their faces red, their elbows
wide, the perspiration beading their foreheads. All around
the table one saw the same incessant movement of jaws and
heard the same uninterrupted sound of chewing. Three times
Heise passed his plate for more roast goose. Mr. Sieppe
devoured the calf's head with long breaths of contentment;
McTeague ate for the sake of eating, without choice;
everything within reach of his hands found its way into his
enormous mouth.
McTeague |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: less have to do with wood as an auxiliary material. But, besides the
application to him of the generic remark above, this carpenter of the
Pequod was singularly efficient in those thousand nameless mechanical
emergencies continually recurring in a large ship, upon a three or
four years' voyage, in uncivilized and far-distant seas. For not to
speak of his readiness in ordinary duties:--repairing stove boats,
sprung spars, reforming the shape of clumsy-bladed oars, inserting
bull's eyes in the deck, or new tree-nails in the side planks, and
other miscellaneous matters more directly pertaining to his special
business; he was moreover unhesitatingly expert in all manner of
conflicting aptitudes, both useful and capricious.
Moby Dick |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: smooth-worn basalt rocks of the nurseries, for they were just as
stupid and unaccommodating as men. Their wives never came to the
island until late in May or early in June, for they did not care
to be torn to pieces; and the young two-, three-, and
four-year-old seals who had not begun housekeeping went inland
about half a mile through the ranks of the fighters and played
about on the sand dunes in droves and legions, and rubbed off
every single green thing that grew. They were called the
holluschickie--the bachelors--and there were perhaps two or
three hundred thousand of them at Novastoshnah alone.
Sea Catch had just finished his forty-fifth fight one spring
The Jungle Book |
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 A Hero of Our Time by M.Y. Lermontov: any knavery. He used to bring rams to our
fortress and sell them cheaply; only he never
would haggle; whatever he demanded at first
you had to give. He would have his throat cut
rather than come down in price. He had the
reputation of being fond of roaming on the far
side of the Kuban with the Abreks; and, to tell
the truth, he had a regular thief's visage. A
little, wizened, broad-shouldered fellow he was --
but smart, I can tell you, smart as the very
devil! His tunic was always worn out and
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