| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Complete Angler by Izaak Walton: And now, scholar, let's go to my rod. Look you, scholar, I have a fish
too, but it proves a logger-headed Chub: and this is not much amiss, for
this will pleasure some poor body, as we go to our lodging to meet our
brother Peter and honest Coridon. Come, now bait your hook again, and
lay it into the water, for it rains again; and we will even retire to the
Sycamore-tree, and there I will give you more directions concerning
fishing, for I would fain make you an artist.
Venator. Yes, good master, I pray let it be so.
Piscator. Well, scholar, now that we are sate down and are at ease, I
shall tell you a little more of Trout-fishing, before I speak of the
Salmon, which I purpose shall be next, and then of the Pike or Luce.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen: "What did that shake of the head mean?" said he. "What was
it meant to express? Disapprobation, I fear. But of what?
What had I been saying to displease you? Did you think me
speaking improperly, lightly, irreverently on the subject?
Only tell me if I was. Only tell me if I was wrong.
I want to be set right. Nay, nay, I entreat you;
for one moment put down your work. What did that shake
of the head mean?"
In vain was her "Pray, sir, don't; pray, Mr. Crawford,"
repeated twice over; and in vain did she try to move away.
In the same low, eager voice, and the same close neighbourhood,
Mansfield Park |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: little wife; I was thinking of the contrast between her pure, lonely
life and the life of the Countess--she has sunk as low as a bill of
exchange already, she will sink to the lowest depths of degradation
before she has done!'--I scrutinized him during the deep silence that
followed, but in a moment he spoke again. 'Well,' he said, 'do you
think that it is nothing to have this power of insight into the
deepest recesses of the human heart, to embrace so many lives, to see
the naked truth underlying it all? There are no two dramas alike:
there are hideous sores, deadly chagrins, love scenes, misery that
soon will lie under the ripples of the Seine, young men's joys that
lead to the scaffold, the laughter of despair, and sumptuous banquets.
Gobseck |
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 Wheels of Chance by H. G. Wells: And so to our revelation. On the internal aspect of the right
ankle of this young man you would have observed, ladies and
gentlemen, a contusion and an abrasion; on the internal aspect of
the left ankle a contusion also; on its external aspect a large
yellowish bruise. On his left shin there were two bruises, one a
leaden yellow graduating here and there into purple, and another,
obviously of more recent date, of a blotchy red--tumid and
threatening. Proceeding up the left leg in a spiral manner, an
unnatural hardness and redness would have been discovered on the
upper aspect of the calf, and above the knee and on the inner
side, an extraordinary expanse of bruised surface, a kind of
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