| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Melmoth Reconciled by Honore de Balzac: rest of my days as the Conte Ferraro. [*Protested.] I was alone with
him when he died, poor fellow, in the marsh of Zembin, and I shall
slip into his skin. . . . Mille diables! the woman who is to follow
after me might give them a clue! Think of an old campaigner like me
infatuated enough to tie myself to a petticoat tail! . . . Why take
her? I must leave her behind. Yes, I could make up my mind to it;
but--I know myself--I should be ass enough to go back to her. Still,
nobody knows Aquilina. Shall I take her or leave her?"
"You will not take her!" cried a voice that filled Castanier with
sickening dread. He turned sharply, and saw the Englishman.
"The devil is in it!" cried the cashier aloud.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Walking by Henry David Thoreau: forward incessantly and never rested from his labors, who grew
fast and made infinite demands on life, would always find himself
in a new country or wilderness, and surrounded by the raw
material of life. He would be climbing over the prostrate stems
of primitive forest trees.
Hope and the future for me are not in lawns and cultivated
fields, not in towns and cities, but in the impervious and
quaking swamps. When, formerly, I have analyzed my partiality for
some farm which I had contemplated purchasing, I have frequently
found that I was attracted solely by a few square rods of
impermeable and unfathomable bog--a natural sink in one corner of
Walking |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: Indeed, all the enjoyments of this period were provocative of
tears. Coming so late as it did, it was a kind of Indian summer,
with a mist in its balmiest sunshine, and decay and death in its
gaudiest delight. The more Clifford seemed to taste the happiness
of a child, the sadder was the difference to be recognized. With
a mysterious and terrible Past, which had annihilated his memory,
and a blank Future before him, he had only this visionary and
impalpable Now, which, if you once look closely at it, is nothing.
He himself, as was perceptible by many symptoms, lay darkly behind
his pleasure, and knew it to be a baby-play, which he was to
toy and trifle with, instead of thoroughly believing. Clifford saw,
House of Seven Gables |
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 King of the Golden River by John Ruskin: in his ears; they were all distant, and his thirst increased every
moment. Another hour passed, and he again looked down to the flask
at his side; it was half empty, but there was much more than three
drops in it. He stopped to open it, and again, as he did so,
something moved in the path above him. It was a fair child,
stretched nearly lifeless on the rock, its breast heaving with
thirst, its eyes closed, and its lips parched and burning. Hans
eyed it deliberately, drank, and passed on. And a dark gray cloud
came over the sun, and long, snakelike shadows crept up along the
mountain sides. Hans struggled on. The sun was sinking, but its
descent seemed to bring no coolness; the leaden height of the dead
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