| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: said to the doctor, a sickly-looking man; "have you been there?"
"I went there, but I had taken flight," the doctor answered with
gloomy jocoseness.
"Then you've taken a good constitutional?"
"Splendid!"
"Well, and how was the old woman? I hope it's not typhus?"
"Typhus it is not, but it's taking a bad turn."
"What a pity!" said Anna, and having thus paid the dues of
civility to her domestic circle, she turned to her own friends.
"It would be a hard task, though, to construct a machine from
your description, Anna Arkadyevna," Sviazhsky said jestingly.
Anna Karenina |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Mistress Wilding by Rafael Sabatini: wine, perhaps, than. . . than..." Whilst he sought the expression
that he needed Trenchard cut in with a laugh. "In vino veritas,
gentlemen," and His Grace and Sir Edward nodded sagely; Luttrell
preserved a stolid exterior. He seemed less prone than his
colleagues to forejudging.
"Will you repeat the expressions used by Mr. Westmacott?" Sir
Edward begged.
"I will repeat the one that, to my mind, matters most. Mr. Westmacott,
getting to his feet and in a loud voice, exclaimed, "God save the
Protestant Duke!"
"Do you admit it, sir?" thundered Albemarle, his eyes glowering upon
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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 From London to Land's End by Daniel Defoe: within two miles, and might be so quite into the city, were it not
for the strength of the stream.
As the city of Winchester is a city without trade--that is to say,
without any particular manufactures--so this city of Salisbury and
all the county of Wilts, of which it is the capital, are full of a
great variety of manufactures, and those some of the most
considerable in England--namely, the clothing trade and the trade
of flannels, druggets, and several other sorts of manufactures, of
which in their order.
The city of Salisbury has two remarkable manufactures carried on in
it, and which employ the poor of great part of the country round--
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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 Little Britain by Washington Irving: "Confession of Faith," which is the famous old drinking trowl
from "Gammer Gurton's Needle." He sings it, to be sure, with
many variations, as he received it from his father's lips; for it
has been a standing favorite at the Half-Moon and Bunch of
Grapes ever since it was written; nay, he affirms that his
predecessors have often had the honor of singing it before the
nobility and gentry at Christmas mummeries, when Little
Britain was in all its glory.
It would do one's heart good to hear, on a club night, the
shouts of merriment, the snatches of song, and now and then
the choral bursts of half a dozen discordant voices, which issue
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