| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Songs of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: Bursting across the tangled math
A ruin that I called a path,
A Golgotha that, later on,
When rains had watered, and suns shone,
And seeds enriched the place, should bear
And be called garden. Here and there,
I spied and plucked by the green hair
A foe more resolute to live,
The toothed and killing sensitive.
He, semi-conscious, fled the attack;
He shrank and tucked his branches back;
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe: came to a town upon the road (I do not remember the name
of it, but it stands upon a river), I pretended myself very ill,
and I could go no farther that night but if he would stay there
with me, because I was a stranger, I would pay him for himself
and his horse with all my heart.
This I did because I knew the Dutch gentlemen and their
servants would be upon the road that day, either in the
stagecoaches or riding post, and I did not know but the drunken
fellow, or somebody else that might have seen me at Harwich,
might see me again, and so I thought that in one day's stop
they would be all gone by.
Moll Flanders |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne: men, and so disastrous in those regions of the globe which
are exposed to the influences of tropical climates.
Many workmen, it is true, paid with their lives for the rashness
inherent in these dangerous labors; but these mishaps are impossible
to be avoided, and they are classed among the details with which
the Americans trouble themselves but little. They have in fact
more regard for human nature in general than for the individual
in particular.
Nevertheless, Barbicane professed opposite principles to these,
and put them in force at every opportunity. So, thanks to his
care, his intelligence, his useful intervention in all
From the Earth to the Moon |
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 Touchstone by Edith Wharton: Glennard turned pale. It was as though a latent presence had
suddenly become visible to both. He took the letter mechanically.
"It's from Smyrna," she said. "Won't you read it?"
He handed it back. "You can tell me about it--his hand's so
illegible." He wandered to the other end of the room and then
turned and stood before her. "I've been thinking of writing to
Flamel," he said.
She looked up.
"There's one point," he continued, slowly, "that I ought to clear
up. I told him you'd known about the letters all along; for a
long time, at least; and I saw it hurt him horribly. It was just
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