| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Wrong Box by Stevenson & Osbourne: have the glass let down; he had now suddenly donned the character
of cicerone, and pointed out and lucidly commented on the sights
of London, as they drove. 'My dear fellow,' he said, 'you don't
seem to know anything of your native city. Suppose we visited the
Tower? No? Well, perhaps it's a trifle out of our way. But,
anyway--Here, cabby, drive round by Trafalgar Square!' And on
that historic battlefield he insisted on drawing up, while he
criticized the statues and gave the artist many curious details
(quite new to history) of the lives of the celebrated men they
represented.
It would be difficult to express what Pitman suffered in the cab:
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from An Episode Under the Terror by Honore de Balzac: lit shop window, in the hope of verifying the suspicions which had
taken hold of her mind.
So soon as she stood in the shaft of light that streamed out across
the road, she turned her head suddenly, and caught sight of a human
figure looming through the fog. The dim vision was enough for her. For
one moment she reeled beneath an overpowering weight of dread, for she
could not doubt any longer that the man had followed her the whole way
from her own door; then the desire to escape from the spy gave her
strength. Unable to think clearly, she walked twice as fast as before,
as if it were possible to escape from a man who of course could move
much faster; and for some minutes she fled on, till, reaching a
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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 Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll: The sandy shore that fringed the bay:
Each in his mouth a living Herring bore--
Those aged ones waxed gay:
Clear rang their voices through the ocean's roar,
'Hooray, hooray, hooray!'"
"So they all got safe home again," Bruno said, after waiting a minute
to see if I had anything to say: he evidently felt that some remark
ought to be made. And I couldn't help wishing there were some such
rule in Society, at the conclusion of a song--that the singer herself
should say the right thing, and not leave it to the audience. Suppose
a young lady has just been warbling ('with a grating and uncertain sound')
Sylvie and Bruno |
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 Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: Denis, as of the most brazen-fronted speculator. If stocks are heavy,
sell you must. If sales are slow, you must tickle your customer; hence
the signs of the Middle Ages, hence the modern prospectus. I do not
see a hair's-breadth of difference between attracting custom and
forcing your goods upon the consumer. It may happen, it is sure to
happen, it often happens, that a shopkeeper gets hold of damaged
goods, for the seller always cheats the buyer. Go and ask the most
upright folk in Paris--the best known men in business, that is--and
they will all triumphantly tell you of dodges by which they passed off
stock which they knew to be bad upon the public. The well-known firm
of Minard began by sales of this kind. In the Rue Saint-Denis they
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