| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Lock and Key Library by Julian Hawthorne, Ed.: I leave a discerning public to judge of my feelings, when, under
these untoward circumstances, at about half-past ten o'clock Master
B.'s bell began to ring in a most infuriated manner, and Turk
howled until the house resounded with his lamentations!
I hope I may never again be in a state of mind so unchristian as
the mental frame in which I lived for some weeks, respecting the
memory of Master B. Whether his bell was rung by rats, or mice, or
bats, or wind, or what other accidental vibration, or sometimes by
one cause, sometimes another, and sometimes by collusion, I don't
know; but, certain it is, that it did ring two nights out of three,
until I conceived the happy idea of twisting Master B.'s neck--in
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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: since it is come that unhappy length, be your whore than your
brother's wife.'
He appeared pleased and touched with the impression of this
last discourse, and told me that he stood where he did before;
that he had not been unfaithful to me in any one promise he
had ever made yet, but that there were so many terrible things
presented themselves to his view in the affair before me, and
that on my account in particular, that he had thought of the
other as a remedy so effectual as nothing could come up to it.
That he thought this would not be entire parting us, but we
might love as friends all our days, and perhaps with more
Moll Flanders |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Case of The Lamp That Went Out by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: bench.
Thus far, therefore, Knoll's story was proved to be true-but there
was something that didn't quite hitch in another way. The tramp had
said that he had seen first a woman and then a man come from the main
house and go in the direction of the smaller house which he took to
be the gardener's dwelling. This Muller discovered now was quite
impossible. A tall hedge, fully seven or eight feet high and very
thick, stretched from the courtyard far down into the garden past
the gardener's little house. There was a broad path on the right
and the left of this green wall. From his position in the shed,
Knoll could have seen people passing only when they were on the
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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 Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: for I longed to console and sympathise with my loved and sorrowing friends;
but when I drew near my native town, I slackened my progress.
I could hardly sustain the multitude of feelings that crowded
into my mind. I passed through scenes familiar to my youth,
but which I had not seen for nearly six years. How altered
every thing might be during that time! One sudden and desolating
change had taken place; but a thousand little circumstances
might have by degrees worked other alterations, which, although
they were done more tranquilly, might not be the less decisive.
Fear overcame me; I dared no advance, dreading a thousand nameless
evils that made me tremble, although I was unable to define them.
Frankenstein |
