| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Captain Stormfield by Mark Twain: gentleman sitting next me, and I noticed he didn't take a hand; I
encouraged him, but he said he was naturally bashful, and was
afraid to try before so many people. By and by the old gentleman
said he never could seem to enjoy music somehow. The fact was, I
was beginning to feel the same way; but I didn't say anything. Him
and I had a considerable long silence, then, but of course it
warn't noticeable in that place. After about sixteen or seventeen
hours, during which I played and sung a little, now and then -
always the same tune, because I didn't know any other - I laid down
my harp and begun to fan myself with my palm branch. Then we both
got to sighing pretty regular. Finally, says he -
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen: importance; a lively town that has steam-boats and stagecoaches: formerly
people called it ugly, but that is no longer true. I lie on the sea," said
Corsor; "I have high roads and gardens, and I have given birth to a poet who
was witty and amusing, which all poets are not. I once intended to equip a
ship that was to sail all round the earth; but I did not do it, although I
could have done so: and then, too, I smell so deliciously, for close before
the gate bloom the most beautiful roses."
* Corsor, on the Great Belt, called, formerly, before the introduction of
steam-vessels, when travellers were often obliged to wait a long time for a
favorable wind, "the most tiresome of towns." The poet Baggesen was born here.
Little Tuk looked, and all was red and green before his eyes; but as soon as
Fairy Tales |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: or up and down, to observe, or seem to mediate, the way in which she
could hold them fixed, casting out their vivid fire without moving her
head, without taking from her face its absolute immovability (a
manoeuvre learned upon the stage), and the vivacity of their glance,
as she looked about a theatre in search of a friend, made her eyes the
most terrible, also the softest, in short, the most extraordinary eyes
in the world. Rouge had destroyed by this time the diaphanous tints of
her cheeks, the flesh of which was still delicate; but although she
could no longer blush or turn pale, she had a thin nose with rosy,
passionate nostrils, made to express irony,--the mocking irony of
Moliere's women-servants. Her sensual mouth, expressive of sarcasm and
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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 Heroes by Charles Kingsley: return in safety with these strangers whom you love. I will
send you food and wine: but your ship must not stay here,
for it is foul with sin, and foul with sin its crew.'
And the heroes prayed her, but in vain, and cried, 'Cleanse
us from our guilt!' But she sent them away, and said, 'Go on
to Malea, and there you may be cleansed, and return home.'
Then a fair wind rose, and they sailed eastward by Tartessus
on the Iberian shore, till they came to the Pillars of
Hercules, and the Mediterranean Sea. And thence they sailed
on through the deeps of Sardinia, and past the Ausonian
islands, and the capes of the Tyrrhenian shore, till they
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