| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Camille by Alexandre Dumas: as if he shivered from head to feet. I looked at him. He
understood the look, and smiled at me; we had not exchanged a
word since leaving the house.
Just before we reached the grave, Armand stopped to wipe his
face, which was covered with great drops of sweat. I took
advantage of the pause to draw in a long breath, for I, too, felt
as if I had a weight on my chest.
What is the origin of that mournful pleasure which we find in
sights of this kind? When we reached the grave the gardener had
removed all the flower-pots, the iron railing had been taken
away, and two men were turning up the soil.
Camille |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis: lickspittle deals that you corporals of industry pull off for the bigger and
brainier crooks, and you'll get chased out of town. And me--you're right,
Babbitt, I've been going crooked, but now I'm going straight, and the first
step will be to get a job in some office where the boss doesn't talk about
Ideals. Bad luck, old dear, and you can stick your job up the sewer!"
Babbitt sat for a long time, alternately raging, "I'll have him arrested," and
yearning "I wonder--No, I've never done anything that wasn't necessary to keep
the Wheels of Progress moving."
Next day he hired in Graff's place Fritz Weilinger, the salesman of his most
injurious rival, the East Side Homes and Development Company, and thus at once
annoyed his competitor and acquired an excellent man. Young Fritz was a
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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 The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: dread--and yet I found it impossible to account for such
feelings. A sensation of stupor oppressed me, as my eyes
followed her retreating steps. When a door, at length, closed
upon her, my glance sought instinctively and eagerly the
countenance of the brother--but he had buried his face in his
hands, and I could only perceive that a far more than ordinary
wanness had overspread the emaciated fingers through which
trickled many passionate tears.
The disease of the lady Madeline had long baffled the skill
of her physicians. A settled apathy, a gradual wasting away of
the person, and frequent although transient affections of a
The Fall of the House of Usher |
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 Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: stood before the window. There, he conceived the utmost horror of
himself. Feeling his virtue weak, fearing still to succumb to the
spell that was upon him he sprang out upon the road and walked along
the bank of the Rhine, pacing up and down like a sentinel before the
inn. Sometimes he went as far as Andernach in his hurried tramp; often
his feet led him up the slope he had descended on his way to the inn;
and sometimes he lost sight of the inn and the window he had left open
behind him. His object, he said, was to weary himself and so find
sleep.
But, as he walked beneath the cloudless skies, beholding the stars,
affected perhaps by the purer air of night and the melancholy lapping
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