| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Time Machine by H. G. Wells: Traveller and the fireplace. Filby sat behind him, looking over
his shoulder. The Medical Man and the Provincial Mayor watched
him in profile from the right, the Psychologist from the left.
The Very Young Man stood behind the Psychologist. We were all on
the alert. It appears incredible to me that any kind of trick,
however subtly conceived and however adroitly done, could have
been played upon us under these conditions.
The Time Traveller looked at us, and then at the mechanism.
`Well?' said the Psychologist.
`This little affair,' said the Time Traveller, resting his
elbows upon the table and pressing his hands together above the
The Time Machine |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from From London to Land's End by Daniel Defoe: first that delighted in it since Queen Elizabeth's time. As for
the reigns before, it was but newly forfeited to the Crown, and was
not made a royal house till King Charles I., who was not only a
prince that delighted in country retirements, but knew how to make
choice of them by the beauty of their situation, the goodness of
the air, &c. He took great delight here, and, had he lived to
enjoy it in peace, had purposed to make it another thing than it
was. But we all know what took him off from that felicity, and all
others; and this house was at last made one of his prisons by his
rebellious subjects.
His son, King Charles II., may well be said to have an aversion to
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift: will equally serve in a fricasie, or a ragoust.
I do therefore humbly offer it to publick consideration, that of
the hundred and twenty thousand children, already computed,
twenty thousand may be reserved for breed, whereof only one
fourth part to be males; which is more than we allow to sheep,
black cattle, or swine, and my reason is, that these children are
seldom the fruits of marriage, a circumstance not much regarded
by our savages, therefore, one male will be sufficient to serve
four females. That the remaining hundred thousand may, at a year
old, be offered in sale to the persons of quality and fortune,
through the kingdom, always advising the mother to let them suck
A Modest Proposal |
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 Hated Son by Honore de Balzac: guaranteed to Gabrielle and her attendants the inviolability of the
little domain, outside of which he forbade them to go without his
permission.
Etienne had remained during these two days shut up in the old
seignorial bedroom under the spell of his tenderest memories. In that
bed his mother had slept; her thoughts had been confided to the
furnishings of that room; she had used them; her eyes had often
wandered among those draperies; how often she had gone to that window
to call with a cry, a sign, her poor disowned child, now master of the
chateau. Alone in that room, whither he had last come secretly,
brought by Beauvouloir to kiss his dying mother, he fancied that she
|
