| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Village Rector by Honore de Balzac: cattle of any kind nor farming implements, they lived for the most
part on chestnuts.
Any one who has studied zoological productions in a museum, or become
personally aware of the indescribable depression caused by the brown
tones of all European products, will understand how the constant sight
of these gray, arid plains must have affected the moral nature of the
inhabitants, through the desolate sense of utter barrenness which they
present to the eye. There, in those dismal regions, is neither
coolness nor brightness, nor shade nor contrast,--none of all those
ideas and spectacles of Nature which awaken and rejoice the heart;
even a stunted apple-tree would be hailed as a friend.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte: could read, write, and sew a little: then she touched my cheek
gently with her forefinger, and saying, "She hoped I should be a
good child," dismissed me along with Miss Miller.
The lady I had left might be about twenty-nine; the one who went
with me appeared some years younger: the first impressed me by her
voice, look, and air. Miss Miller was more ordinary; ruddy in
complexion, though of a careworn countenance; hurried in gait and
action, like one who had always a multiplicity of tasks on hand:
she looked, indeed, what I afterwards found she really was, an
under-teacher. Led by her, I passed from compartment to
compartment, from passage to passage, of a large and irregular
Jane Eyre |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Mistress Wilding by Rafael Sabatini: Ruth listened, her eyes burning, the rest of her as cold as ice.
"But...but.., oh, thank God that you at least are safe, Dick!"
"How did you escape?" quoth Diana.
"How?" He started as if he had been stung. He laughed in a high,
cracked voice, his eyes wild and bloodshot. "How? Perhaps it is just
as well that Blake has gone to his account. Perhaps.. ." He checked
on the word, and started to his feet; Diana screamed in sheer aifright.
Behind her the windows had been thrust open so violently that one of
the panes was shivered. Blake stood under the lintel, scarce
recognizable, so smeared was his face with the blood escaping from the
wound his cheek had taken. His clothes were muddied, soiled, torn, 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 Beast in the Jungle by Henry James: feel it hadn't been, much as it had been a surprise. After the
first little shock of it her knowledge on the contrary began, even
if rather strangely, to taste sweet to him. She was the only other
person in the world then who would have it, and she had had it all
these years, while the fact of his having so breathed his secret
had unaccountably faded from him. No wonder they couldn't have met
as if nothing had happened. "I judge," he finally said, "that I
know what you mean. Only I had strangely enough lost any sense of
having taken you so far into my confidence."
"Is it because you've taken so many others as well?"
"I've taken nobody. Not a creature since then."
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