| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Mosses From An Old Manse by Nathaniel Hawthorne: visage, which was grimed with the vapors of the furnace. This
personage had been Aylmer's underworker during his whole
scientific career, and was admirably fitted for that office by
his great mechanical readiness, and the skill with which, while
incapable of comprehending a single principle, he executed all
the details of his master's experiments. With his vast strength,
his shaggy hair, his smoky aspect, and the indescribable
earthiness that incrusted him, he seemed to represent man's
physical nature; while Aylmer's slender figure, and pale,
intellectual face, were no less apt a type of the spiritual
element.
Mosses From An Old Manse |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Cousin Pons by Honore de Balzac: and spirits even more than the body, the emptiness of the life,--all
these things tend to induce him to cling to the human being who waits
on him as a drowned man clings to a plank; and this especially if the
bachelor patient's character is as weak as his nature is sensitive and
incredulous.
Pons was charmed to hear La Cibot's tittle-tattle. Schmucke, Mme.
Cibot, and Dr. Poulain meant all humanity to him now, when his
sickroom became the universe. If invalid's thoughts, as a rule, never
travel beyond in the little space over which his eyes can wander; if
their selfishness, in its narrow sphere, subordinates all creatures
and all things to itself, you can imagine the lengths to which an old
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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 House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: It is a very genuine admiration, that with which persons too shy
or too awkward to take a due part in the bustling world regard
the real actors in life's stirring scenes; so genuine, in fact,
that the former are usually fain to make it palatable to their
self-love, by assuming that these active and forcible qualities
are incompatible with others, which they choose to deem higher
and more important. Thus, Hepzibah was well content to acknowledge
Phoebe's vastly superior gifts as a shop-keeper'--she listened,
with compliant ear, to her suggestion of various methods whereby
the influx of trade might be increased, and rendered profitable,
without a hazardous outlay of capital. She consented that the
House of Seven Gables |
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 Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield: don't like babies."
"Don't like babies?" The boy couldn't believe her. "Don't like me? " He
waved his arms foolishly at his mother.
Linda dropped off her chair on to the grass.
"Why do you keep on smiling?" she said severely. "If you knew what I was
thinking about, you wouldn't."
But he only squeezed up his eyes, slyly, and rolled his head on the pillow.
He didn't believe a word she said.
"We know all about that!" smiled the boy.
Linda was so astonished at the confidence of this little creature...Ah no,
be sincere. That was not what she felt; it was something far different, it
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