| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas: depressed than ever. Suddenly she heard a step she knew,
turned anxiously around, the door opened, and Fernand,
dressed in the uniform of a sub-lieutenant, stood before
her. It was not the one she wished for most, but it seemed
as if a part of her past life had returned to her. Mercedes
seized Fernand's hands with a transport which he took for
love, but which was only joy at being no longer alone in the
world, and seeing at last a friend, after long hours of
solitary sorrow. And then, it must be confessed, Fernand had
never been hated -- he was only not precisely loved. Another
possessed all Mercedes' heart; that other was absent, had
The Count of Monte Cristo |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Contrast by Royall Tyler: are judges of its merit?
CHARLOTTE
Why, a creature who does not know Buffon from
Souflee--Man!--my Letitia--Man! for whom we
dress, walk, dance, talk, lisp, languish, and smile.
Does not the grave Spectator assure us that even our
much bepraised diffidence, modesty, and blushes are
all directed to make ourselves good wives and mothers
as fast as we can? Why, I'll undertake with one flirt
of this hoop to bring more beaux to my feet in one
week than the grave Maria, and her sentimental
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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 Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy: It became at once evident that the dance was proceeding immediately
within the surface of the door, no apartment intervening.
The brushing of skirts and elbows, sometimes the bumping
of shoulders, could be heard against the very panels.
Eustacia, though living within two miles of the place,
had never seen the interior of this quaint old habitation.
Between Captain Vye and the Yeobrights there had never
existed much acquaintance, the former having come as a
stranger and purchased the long-empty house at Mistover
Knap not long before the death of Mrs. Yeobright's husband;
and with that event and the departure of her son
Return of the Native |
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 Village Rector by Honore de Balzac: None of the windows, cased in wood and formerly adorned with carvings,
now destroyed by the action of the weather, had continued plumb; some
bobbed forward, others tipped backward, while a few seemed disposed to
fall apart; all had a compost of earth, brought from heaven knows
where, in the nooks and crannies hollowed by the rain, in which the
spring-tide brought forth fragile flowers, timid creeping plants, and
sparse herbage. Moss carpeted the roof and draped its supports. The
corner pillar, with its composite masonry of stone blocks mingled with
brick and pebbles, was alarming to the eye by reason of its curvature;
it seemed on the point of giving way under the weight of the house,
the gable of which overhung it by at least half a foot. The municipal
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