| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: unsatisfied curiosity to stay within entirely myself; and though I
generally came frighted and terrified home, vet I could not restrain;
only that indeed I did not do it so frequently as at first.
I had some little obligations, indeed, upon me to go to my brother's
house, which was in Coleman Street parish and which he had left to
my care, and I went at first every day, but afterwards only once or
twice a week.
In these walks I had many dismal scenes before my eyes, as
particularly of persons falling dead in the streets, terrible shrieks and
screechings of women, who, in their agonies, would throw open their
chamber windows and cry out in a dismal, surprising manner. It is
A Journal of the Plague Year |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac: Grande Nanon, dismayed the cooper, who was at that time still of an
age when the heart shudders. He fed, shod, and clothed the poor girl,
gave her wages, and put her to work without treating her too roughly.
Seeing herself thus welcomed, la Grande Nanon wept secretly tears of
joy, and attached herself in all sincerity to her master, who from
that day ruled her and worked her with feudal authority. Nanon did
everything. She cooked, she made the lye, she washed the linen in the
Loire and brought it home on her shoulders; she got up early, she went
to bed late; she prepared the food of the vine-dressers during the
harvest, kept watch upon the market-people, protected the property of
her master like a faithful dog, and even, full of blind confidence,
Eugenie Grandet |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare: I did vpbraid her, and fall out with her.
For she his hairy temples then had rounded,
With coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers.
And that same dew which somtime on the buds,
Was wont to swell like round and orient pearles;
Stood now within the pretty flouriets eyes,
Like teares that did their owne disgrace bewaile.
When I had at my pleasure taunted her,
And she in milde termes beg'd my patience,
I then did aske of her, her changeling childe,
Which straight she gaue me, and her fairy sent
A Midsummer Night's Dream |
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 Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac: ingenuous mind. A silent witness of her husbands' torments since the
day when Madame de Vaudremont had chained him to her car, she had
confidently hoped that repentance would ere long restore her husband
to her. It was with unspeakable repugnance that she had consented to
the scheme plotted by her aunt, Madame de Lansac, and at this moment
she feared she had made a mistake.
The evening's experience had saddened her innocent soul. Alarmed at
first by the Count's look of suffering and dejection, she had become
more so on seeing her rival's beauty, and the corruption of society
had gripped her heart. As she crossed the Pont Royal she threw away
the desecrated hair at the back of the diamond, given to her once as a
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