| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Start in Life by Honore de Balzac: "Ha! then I'm to carry Monsieur le Comte de Serizy!" cried the coach-
proprietor.
"Yes, my land, neither more nor less. But listen! here's a special
order. If you have any of the country neighbors in your coach you are
not to call him Monsieur le comte; he wants to travel 'en cognito,'
and told me to be sure to say he would pay a handsome pourboire if he
was not recognized."
"So! Has this secret journey anything to do with the affair which Pere
Leger, the farmer at the Moulineaux, came to Paris the other day to
settle?"
"I don't know," replied the valet, "but the fat's in the fire. Last
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Rape of Lucrece by William Shakespeare: 'Mine enemy was strong, my poor self weak,
And far the weaker with so strong a fear:
My bloody judge forbade my tongue to speak;
No rightful plea might plead for justice there:
His scarlet lust came evidence to swear
That my poor beauty had purloin'd his eyes;
And when the judge is robb'd the prisoner dies.
'O, teach me how to make mine own excuse!
Or at the least this refuge let me find;
Though my gross blood be stain'd with this abuse,
Immaculate and spotless is my mind;
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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 The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: general form, was that of the sentience of all vegetable things.
But, in his disordered fancy, the idea had assumed a more daring
character, and trespassed, under certain conditions, upon the
kingdom of inorganization. I lack words to express the full
extent, or the earnest abandon of his persuasion. The
belief, however, was connected (as I have previously hinted) with
the gray stones of the home of his forefathers. The conditions
of the sentience had been here, he imagined, fulfilled in the
method of collocation of these stones--in the order of their
arrangement, as well as in that of the many fungi which
overspread them, and of the decayed trees which stood around--
The Fall of the House of Usher |
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 A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo: protection of those that engaged in so just a cause, that though he
were in that condition and alone, he would attack his enemies.
The battle began immediately, and of all the troops of Tecla Georgis
only the Galles made any resistance, the rest abandoned him without
striking a blow. The unhappy commander, seeing all his squadrons
broken, and three hundred of the Galles, with twelve ecclesiastics,
killed on the spot, hid himself in a cave, where he was found three
days afterwards, with his favourite and a monk. When they took him,
they cut off the heads of his two companions in the field, and
carried him to the Emperor; the procedure against him was not long,
and he was condemned to be burnt alive. Then imagining that, if he
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