| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: carry him to the boat.'
"She refused; and Cambremer carried him alone; he laid him in the
bottom of the boat, tied a stone to his neck, took the oars and rowed
out of the cove to the open sea, till he came to the rock where he now
is. When the poor mother, who had come up here with her brother-in-
law, cried out, 'Mercy, mercy!' it was like throwing a stone at a
wolf. There was a moon, and she saw the father casting her son into
the water; her son, the child of her womb, and as there was no wind,
she heard BLOUF! and then nothing--neither sound nor bubble. Ah! the
sea is a fine keeper of what it gets. Rowing inshore to stop his
wife's cries, Cambremer found her half-dead. The two brothers couldn't
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Happy Prince and Other Tales by Oscar Wilde: she threw into the air seven pink stars. She was three feet and a
half in diameter, and made of the very best gunpowder. My father
was a Rocket like myself, and of French extraction. He flew so
high that the people were afraid that he would never come down
again. He did, though, for he was of a kindly disposition, and he
made a most brilliant descent in a shower of golden rain. The
newspapers wrote about his performance in very flattering terms.
Indeed, the Court Gazette called him a triumph of Pylotechnic art."
"Pyrotechnic, Pyrotechnic, you mean," said a Bengal Light; "I know
it is Pyrotechnic, for I saw it written on my own canister."
"Well, I said Pylotechnic," answered the Rocket, in a severe tone
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: nothing to do."
Mr. Darcy smiled; but Elizabeth thought she could perceive that
he was rather offended, and therefore checked her laugh. Miss
Bingley warmly resented the indignity he had received, in an
expostulation with her brother for talking such nonsense.
"I see your design, Bingley," said his friend. "You dislike an
argument, and want to silence this."
"Perhaps I do. Arguments are too much like disputes. If you
and Miss Bennet will defer yours till I am out of the room, I shall
be very thankful; and then you may say whatever you like of
me."
Pride and Prejudice |
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 Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: conceptions themselves. They continue to follow the same line of life.
A hearty appreciation of the things of others is still one of their
most winning traits. What they took they grafted bodily upon their
ancestral tree, which in consequence came to present a most
unnaturally diversified appearance. For though not unlike other
nations in wishing to borrow, if their zeal in the matter was
slightly excessive, they were peculiar in that they never assimilated
what they took. They simply inserted it upon the already existing
growth. There it remained, and throve, and blossomed, nourished by
that indigenous Japanese sap, taste. But like grafts generally,
the foreign boughs were not much modified by their new life-blood,
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