| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Othello by William Shakespeare: 'Twas I that kill'd her.
Aemil. Oh the more Angell she, and you the blacker
Diuell
Oth. She turn'd to folly: and she was a whore.
Aemil. Thou do'st bely her, and thou art a diuell
Oth. She was false as water.
Aemil. Thou art rash as fire, to say
That she was false. Oh she was heauenly true
Oth. Cassio did top her: Ask thy husband else.
O, I were damn'd beneath all depth in hell:
But that I did proceed vpon iust grounds
Othello |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain: sure. I did very much wish I had a little piece of it.
It was just what I needed, in order to carry out my
project of escape. My idea was to get loose some
night, along with the king, then gag and bind our
master, change clothes with him, batter him into the
aspect of a stranger, hitch him to the slave-chain,
assume possession of the property, march to Camelot,
and --
But you get my idea; you see what a stunning
dramatic surprise I would wind up with at the palace.
It was all feasible, if I could only get hold of a slender
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Persuasion by Jane Austen: Anne had never seen her father and sister before in contact with nobility,
and she must acknowledge herself disappointed. She had hoped
better things from their high ideas of their own situation in life,
and was reduced to form a wish which she had never foreseen;
a wish that they had more pride; for "our cousins Lady Dalrymple
and Miss Carteret;" "our cousins, the Dalrymples," sounded in her ears
all day long.
Sir Walter had once been in company with the late viscount,
but had never seen any of the rest of the family; and the difficulties
of the case arose from there having been a suspension of all intercourse
by letters of ceremony, ever since the death of that said late viscount,
Persuasion |
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 Adieu by Honore de Balzac: wheels, and broken carriages. These soldiers were, no doubt, the last
comers of that crowd who, from the base of the hill of Studzianka to
the fatal river, formed an ocean of heads intermingled with fires and
huts,--a living sea, swayed by motions that were almost imperceptible,
and giving forth a murmuring sound that rose at times to frightful
outbursts. Driven by famine and despair, these poor wretches must have
rifled the carriage before de Sucy reached it. The old general and his
young wife, whom he had left lying in piles of clothes and wrapped in
mantles and pelisses, were now on the snow, crouching before the fire.
One door of the carriage was already torn off.
No sooner did the men about the fire hear the tread of the major's
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