| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: he walked off.
One evening, on the road leading to Beaumont, she came upon a wagon
loaded with hay, and when she overtook it, she recognised Theodore. He
greeted her calmly, and asked her to forget what had happened between
them, as it "was all the fault of the drink."
She did not know what to reply and wished to run away.
Presently he began to speak of the harvest and of the notables of the
village; his father had left Colleville and bought the farm of Les
Ecots, so that now they would be neighbours. "Ah!" she exclaimed. He
then added that his parents were looking around for a wife for him,
but that he, himself, was not so anxious and preferred to wait for a
A Simple Soul |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: her elegance and the defects of her conformation. The bust, however,
was defective in the shoulders only, one of which was noticeably much
larger than the other.
She looked out of the window into the court-yard, then towards the
garden, as if to make sure she was alone with Balthazar, and presently
said, in a gentle voice and with a look full of a Flemish woman's
submissiveness,--for between these two love had long since driven out
the pride of her Spanish nature:--
"Balthazar, are you so very busy? this is the thirty-third Sunday
since you have been to mass or vespers."
Claes did not answer; his wife bowed her head, clasped her hands, and
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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 A Footnote to History by Robert Louis Stevenson: scene which long rankled in the minds of the white inhabitants,
when the German marines raided the town in search of Malietoa,
burst into private houses, and were accused (I am willing to
believe on slender grounds) of violence to private persons.
On the morrow, the 25th, one of the German war-ships, which had
been despatched to Leulumoenga over night re-entered the bay,
flying the Tamasese colours at the fore. The new king was given a
royal salute of twenty-one guns, marched through the town by the
commodore and a German guard of honour, and established on Mulinuu
with two or three hundred warriors. Becker announced his
recognition to the other consuls. These replied by proclaiming
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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 The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: been for this reason only, that, when I again uplifted my eyes to
the house itself, from its image in the pool, there grew in my
mind a strange fancy--a fancy so ridiculous, indeed, that I but
mention it to show the vivid force of the sensations which
oppressed me. I had so worked upon my imagination as really to
believe that about the whole mansion and domain there hung an
atmosphere peculiar to themselves and their immediate vicinity--
an atmosphere which had no affinity with the air of heaven, but
which had reeked up from the decayed trees, and the grey wall,
and the silent tarn--a pestilent and mystic vapour, dull,
sluggish, faintly discernible, and leaden-hued.
The Fall of the House of Usher |
