| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Time Machine by H. G. Wells: quietly up the laboratory, back foremost, and disappeared behind
the door by which she had previously entered. Just before that I
seemed to see Hillyer for a moment; but he passed like a flash.
`Then I stopped the machine, and saw about me again the old
familiar laboratory, my tools, my appliances just as I had left
them. I got off the thing very shaky, and sat down upon my
bench. For several minutes I trembled violently. Then I became
calmer. Around me was my old workshop again, exactly as it had
been. I might have slept there, and the whole thing have been a
dream.
`And yet, not exactly! The thing had started from the
The Time Machine |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Les Miserables by Victor Hugo: fixed on the girl whom he no longer saw. What we have just written
seems strange, and yet it is true. The memory of an absent being
kindles in the darkness of the heart; the more it has disappeared,
the more it beams; the gloomy and despairing soul sees this light
on its horizon; the star of the inner night. She--that was Marius'
whole thought. He meditated of nothing else; he was confusedly
conscious that his old coat was becoming an impossible coat, and that
his new coat was growing old, that his shirts were wearing out,
that his hat was wearing out, that his boots were giving out,
and he said to himself: "If I could but see her once again before
I die!"
Les Miserables |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: round upon his crew, sweeping from one to the other; pausing his
glance long upon Daggoo, Queequeg, Tashtego; but shunning Fedallah;
and then settling his firm relying eye upon the chief mate,
said,--"Take the rope, sir--I give it into thy hands, Starbuck."
Then arranging his person in the basket, he gave the word for them to
hoist him to his perch, Starbuck being the one who secured the rope
at last; and afterwards stood near it. And thus, with one hand
clinging round the royal mast, Ahab gazed abroad upon the sea for
miles and miles,--ahead, astern, this side, and that,--within the
wide expanded circle commanded at so great a height.
When in working with his hands at some lofty almost isolated place in
Moby Dick |
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 Droll Stories, V. 1 by Honore de Balzac: flesh-to-flesh with her, and make so grand a repast off her dainty
body as would suffice him all his life. He passed the night saying,
"oh yes; ah! I'll have her!" and "Curses am I not her husband?" and
"Devil take me," striking himself on the forehead and tossing about.
There are chances and occasions which occur so opportunely in this
world that little-minded men refuse them credence, saying they are
supernatural, but men of high intellect know them to be true because
they could not be invented. One of the chances came to the poor
advocate, even the day after that terrible one which had been so sore
a trial to him. One of his clients, a man of good renown, who had his
audiences with the king, came one morning to the advocate, saying that
Droll Stories, V. 1 |
