| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin: suitable to their own situations, and therefore fit to be imitated.
<1> After the words "agreeable to" the words "some of" were
interlined and afterward effaced.--B.
That felicity, when I reflected on it, has induced me sometimes
to say, that were it offered to my choice, I should have no objection
to a repetition of the same life from its beginning, only asking
the advantages authors have in a second edition to correct some faults
of the first. So I might, besides correcting the faults, change some
sinister accidents and events of it for others more favorable.
But though this were denied, I should still accept the offer.
Since such a repetition is not to be expected, the next thing
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte: with a silver thread; which, on examination, I ascertained to have
been taken from a locket hung round Catherine's neck. Heathcliff
had opened the trinket and cast out its contents, replacing them by
a black lock of his own. I twisted the two, and enclosed them
together.
Mr. Earnshaw was, of course, invited to attend the remains of his
sister to the grave; he sent no excuse, but he never came; so that,
besides her husband, the mourners were wholly composed of tenants
and servants. Isabella was not asked.
The place of Catherine's interment, to the surprise of the
villagers, was neither in the chapel under the carved monument of
Wuthering Heights |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Little Britain by Washington Irving: France, had been murdered; there had been radical meetings in
all parts of the kingdom; the bloody scenes at Manchester; the
great plot of Cato Street; and above all, the queen had returned
to England! All these sinister events are recounted by Mr.
Skryme, with a mysterious look, and a dismal shake of the
head; and being taken with his drugs, and associated in the
minds of his auditors with stuffed sea-monsters, bottled
serpents, and his own visage, which is a title-page of
tribulation, they have spread great gloom through the minds of
the people of Little Britain. They shake their heads whenever
they go by Bow Church, and observe, that they never expected
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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 Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson:
Treasure Island |
