| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Dracula by Bram Stoker: Then he stood up and bowed.
"Oh, you so clever woman!" he said. "I knew long that Mr. Jonathan was
a man of much thankfulness, but see, his wife have all the good things.
And will you not so much honor me and so help me as to read it
for me? Alas! I know not the shorthand."
By this time my little joke was over, and I was almost ashamed.
So I took the typewritten copy from my work basket and handed
it to him.
"Forgive me," I said. "I could not help it, but I had been
thinking that it was of dear Lucy that you wished to ask,
and so that you might not have time to wait, not on my account,
Dracula |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Massimilla Doni by Honore de Balzac: life was the bad dream, and the life of opium held love and bliss,
important affairs and political interests. Alas! To my grief, I see
the dawn over my tomb, where truth and falsehood mingle in a dubious
light, which is neither day nor darkness, but partakes of both."
"So you see that in this head there is too much patriotism," said the
Prince, laying his hand on the thick black curls that fell on
Vendramin's brow.
"Oh, if he loves us he will give up his dreadful opium!" said
Massimilla.
"I will cure your friend," said the Frenchman.
"Achieve that, and we shall love you," said the Duchess. "But if on
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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 McTeague by Frank Norris: carried two bananas and an orange in a net reticule. "For
Owgooste," she confided to him. Owgooste was in a
Fauntleroy "costume" very much too small for him. Already
he had been crying.
"Woult you pelief, Doktor, dot bube has torn his stockun
alreatty? Walk in der front, you; stop cryun. Where is dot
berliceman?"
At the door of the theatre McTeague was suddenly seized with
a panic terror. He had lost the tickets. He tore through
his pockets, ransacked his wallet. They were nowhere to be
found. All at once he remembered, and with a gasp of relief
McTeague |
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 Les Miserables by Victor Hugo: insults Homer, when Maevius insults Virgil, when Vise insults Moliere,
when Pope insults Shakspeare, when Frederic insults Voltaire,
it is an old law of envy and hatred which is being carried out;
genius attracts insult, great men are always more or less barked at.
But Zoilus and Cicero are two different persons. Cicero is an arbiter
in thought, just as Brutus is an arbiter by the sword. For my own part,
I blame that last justice, the blade; but, antiquity admitted it.
Caesar, the violator of the Rubicon, conferring, as though they
came from him, the dignities which emanated from the people,
not rising at the entrance of the senate, committed the acts
of a king and almost of a tyrant, regia ac pene tyrannica.
Les Miserables |
