| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Almayer's Folly by Joseph Conrad: sudden madness? What bewitched you? Come to your father, and
together we shall try to forget this horrible nightmare!"
He opened his arms with the certitude of clasping her to his
breast in another second. She did not move. As it dawned upon
him that she did not mean to obey he felt a deadly cold creep
into his heart, and, pressing the palms of his hands to his
temples, he looked down on the ground in mute despair. Dain took
Nina by the arm and led her towards her father.
"Speak to him in the language of his people," he said. "He is
grieving--as who would not grieve at losing thee, my pearl!
Speak to him the last words he shall hear spoken by that voice,
Almayer's Folly |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain: that it wasn't -- and so the suggestion of a captured
bundle was too much for his self-possession. But on
the whole he felt glad the little episode had happened,
for now he knew beyond all question that that bundle
was not THE bundle, and so his mind was at rest and
exceedingly comfortable. In fact, everything seemed
to be drifting just in the right direction, now; the
treasure must be still in No. 2, the men would be
captured and jailed that day, and he and Tom could
seize the gold that night without any trouble or any
fear of interruption.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Songs of Innocence and Experience by William Blake: And away the vapour flew.
THE LITTLE BOY FOUND
The little boy lost in the lonely fen,
Led by the wandering light,
Began to cry, but God, ever nigh,
Appeared like his father, in white.
He kissed the child, and by the hand led,
And to his mother brought,
Who in sorrow pale, through the lonely dale,
Her little boy weeping sought.
LAUGHING SONG
Songs of Innocence and Experience |
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 Eve and David by Honore de Balzac: village; and the wiliest journalist may prove the veriest simpleton in
a piece of business. Lucien could but be a puppet in the hands of
Petit-Claud.
That guileful practitioner, as might have been expected, had written
the article himself; Angouleme and L'Houmeau, thus put on their
mettle, thought it incumbent upon them to pay honor to Lucien. His
fellow-citizens, assembled in the Place du Murier, were Cointets'
workpeople from the papermills and printing-house, with a sprinkling
of Lucien's old schoolfellows and the clerks in the employ of
Messieurs Petit-Claud and Cachan. As for the attorney himself, he was
once more Lucien's chum of old days; and he thought, not without
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