| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac: words, for I had all their happiness as well as my own to make me
glad. All my hopes became centered on this house, where the man dwelt
who had been the first to put a steady faith in me. Like the basket-
maker's wife, clasping her first nursling to her breast, did not I
already fondly cherish the hopes of the future of this poor district?
"I had to do so many things at once," he went on, "I came into
collision with other people's notions, and met with violent
opposition, fomented by the ignorant mayor to whose office I had
succeeded, and whose influence had dwindled away as mine increased. I
determined to make him my deputy and a confederate in my schemes of
benevolence. Yes, in the first place, I endeavored to instil
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: increasing, and in a few seconds more getting beyond the point of all sober
pleasure, and then advancing with all speed into the regions of pain, the
soul of Phutatorius, together with all his ideas, his thoughts, his
attention, his imagination, judgment, resolution, deliberation,
ratiocination, memory, fancy, with ten battalions of animal spirits, all
tumultuously crowded down, through different defiles and circuits, to the
place of danger, leaving all his upper regions, as you may imagine, as
empty as my purse.
With the best intelligence which all these messengers could bring him back,
Phutatorius was not able to dive into the secret of what was going forwards
below, nor could he make any kind of conjecture, what the devil was the
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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 Confidence by Henry James: Captain Lovelock is like my dear little blue terrier that I
left at home. If I hold out a stick he will jump over it.
He won't jump without the stick; but as soon as I produce it
he knows what he has to do. He looks at it a moment and then
he gives his little hop. He knows he will have a lump of sugar,
and Captain Lovelock expects one as well. Dear Captain Lovelock,
shall I ring for a lump? Would n't it be touching?
Gar;alcon, un morceau de sucre pour Monsieur le Capitaine!
But what I give Monsieur le Capitaine is moral sugar! I usually
administer it in private, and he shall have a good big morsel when you
go away."
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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 Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery: Like most quiet folks he liked talkative people when they
were willing to do the talking themselves and did not expect
him to keep up his end of it. But he had never expected to
enjoy the society of a little girl. Women were bad enough
in all conscience, but little girls were worse. He detested
the way they had of sidling past him timidly, with sidewise
glances, as if they expected him to gobble them up at a
mouthful if they ventured to say a word. That was the
Avonlea type of well-bred little girl. But this freckled
witch was very different, and although he found it rather
difficult for his slower intelligence to keep up with her
Anne of Green Gables |
