| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne: of the vapours. The mixture of the storm glass was decomposed
under the influence of the electricity that pervaded the atmosphere.
The tempest burst on the 18th of May, just as the Nautilus was
floating off Long Island, some miles from the port of New York.
I can describe this strife of the elements! for,
instead of fleeing to the depths of the sea, Captain Nemo,
by an unaccountable caprice, would brave it at the surface.
The wind blew from the south-west at first. Captain Nemo,
during the squalls, had taken his place on the platform.
He had made himself fast, to prevent being washed overboard
by the monstrous waves. I had hoisted myself up, and made myself
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Middlemarch by George Eliot: quite reasonable, yet they had brought a vague instantaneous sense
of aloofness on his part.
"Surely I am in a strangely selfish weak state of mind," she said
to herself. "How can I have a husband who is so much above me
without knowing that he needs me less than I need him?"
Having convinced herself that Mr. Casaubon was altogether right,
she recovered her equanimity, and was an agreeable image of serene
dignity when she came into the drawing-room in her silver-gray
dress--the simple lines of her dark-brown hair parted over her brow
and coiled massively behind, in keeping with the entire absence
from her manner and expression of all search after mere effect.
Middlemarch |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: lunt in his own hand to fire the largest cannon, such a cannon as none
of the Cossacks had ever beheld before. It looked horrible with its
wide mouth, and a thousand deaths poured forth from it. And as it
thundered, the three others followed, shaking in fourfold earthquake
the dully responsive earth. Much woe did they cause. For more than one
Cossack wailed the aged mother, beating with bony hands her feeble
breast; more than one widow was left in Glukhof, Nemirof, Chernigof,
and other cities. The loving woman will hasten forth every day to the
bazaar, grasping at all passers-by, scanning the face of each to see
if there be not among them one dearer than all; but though many an
army will pass through the city, never among them will a single one of
Taras Bulba and Other Tales |
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 Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: catastrophes, before the generality of persons will be convinced
that no law concerning anything--least of all concerning land, for
either holding or dividing it, or renting it high, or renting it
low--would be of the smallest ultimate use to the people, so long as
the general contest for life, and for the means of life, remains one
of mere brutal competition. That contest, in an unprincipled
nation, will take one deadly form or another, whatever laws you make
against it. For instance, it would be an entirely wholesome law for
England, if it could be carried, that maximum limits should be
assigned to incomes according to classes; and that every nobleman's
income should be paid to him as a fixed salary or pension by the
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