| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Exiles by Honore de Balzac: first church erected in Paris, on the very spot where Saint-Denis was
laid on the gridiron, as chronicles tell. The hour flew from steeple
to tower all over the city. Then suddenly confused shouts were heard
on the left bank of the Seine, behind Notre-Dame, in the quarter where
the schools of the University harbored their swarms.
At this signal, Jacqueline's elder lodger began to move about his
room. The sergeant, his wife, and the strange lady listened while he
opened and shut his door, and the old man's heavy step was heard on
the steep stair. The constable's suspicions gave such interest to the
advent of this personage, that the lady was startled as she observed
the strange expression of the two countenances before her. Referring
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne: platinum and gold. I thought, what riches are here buried at an
unapproachable depth in the earth, hidden for ever from the covetous
eyes of the human race! These treasures have been buried at such a
profound depth by the convulsions of primeval times that they run no
chance of ever being molested by the pickaxe or the spade.
To the schists succeeded gneiss, partially stratified, remarkable for
the parallelism and regularity of its lamina, then mica schists, laid
in large plates or flakes, revealing their lamellated structure by
the sparkle of the white shining mica.
The light from our apparatus, reflected from the small facets of
quartz, shot sparkling rays at every angle, and I seemed to be moving
Journey to the Center of the Earth |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James: thyself. 'And where shall I do that, Lord?' He answered her, In
the desert. This made so strong an impression on her soul that
she aspired after this; but being a maid of eighteen years only,
she was afraid of unlucky chances, and was never used to travel,
and knew no way. She laid aside all these doubts and said,
'Lord, thou wilt guide me how and where it shall please thee. It
is for thee that I do it. I will lay aside my habit of a maid,
and will take that of a hermit that I may pass unknown.' Having
then secretly made ready this habit, while her parents thought to
have married her, her father having promised her to a rich French
merchant, she prevented the time, and on Easter evening, having
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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 Bunner Sisters by Edith Wharton: barrels and flabby fish, found no one in the shop but the gory-
aproned butcher who stood in the background cutting chops.
As she approached him across the tesselation of fish-scales,
blood and saw-dust, he laid aside his cleaver and not
unsympathetically asked: "Sister sick?"
"Oh, not very--jest a cold," she answered, as guiltily as if
Evelina's illness had been feigned. "We want a steak as usual,
please--and my sister said you was to be sure to give me jest as
good a cut as if it was her," she added with child-like candour.
"Oh, that's all right." The butcher picked up his weapon with
a grin. "Your sister knows a cut as well as any of us," he
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