| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: seiz'd the pass, I'll answer for it, said the corporal, snapping his
fingers over his head--that the day is our own.
I wish I may but manage it right; said my uncle Toby--but I declare,
corporal, I had rather march up to the very edge of a trench--
--A woman is quite a different thing--said the corporal.
--I suppose so, quoth my uncle Toby.
Chapter 4.LV.
If any thing in this world, which my father said, could have provoked my
uncle Toby, during the time he was in love, it was the perverse use my
father was always making of an expression of Hilarion the hermit; who, in
speaking of his abstinence, his watchings, flagellations, and other
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: To say the truth, in the joy of beholding the object of his
desires, the terrible dragon had quite slipped out of Jason's
memory. Soon, however, something came to pass, that reminded
him what perils were still to be encountered. An antelope, that
probably mistook the yellow radiance for sunrise, came bounding
fleetly through the grove. He was rushing straight towards the
Golden Fleece, when suddenly there was a frightful hiss, and
the immense head and half the scaly body of the dragon was
thrust forth (for he was twisted round the trunk of the tree on
which the Fleece hung), and seizing the poor antelope,
swallowed him with one snap of his jaws.
Tanglewood Tales |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: them to rights in the thing, and let them know that they had been
so much in the wrong; that though the people who were on board at
first might run away with the ship, yet it was not true that they
had turned pirates; and that, in particular, these were not the men
that first went off with the ship, but innocently bought her for
their trade; and I am persuaded they will so far believe me as at
least to act more cautiously for the time to come."
In about thirteen days' sail we came to an anchor, at the south-
west point of the great Gulf of Nankin; where I learned by accident
that two Dutch ships were gone the length before me, and that I
should certainly fall into their hands. I consulted my partner
Robinson Crusoe |
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 Riverman by Stewart Edward White: of ornaments atop the latter bespoke the musician. Through the
filtered gloom of the demi-light Orde surveyed with interest the
excellent reproductions of the Old World masterpieces framed on the
walls--"Madonnas" by Raphael, Murillo, and Perugino, the "Mona
Lisa," and Botticelli's "Spring"--the three oil portraits occupying
the large spaces; the spindle-legged chairs and tables, the tea
service in the corner, the tall bronze lamp by the piano, the neat
little grate-hearth, with its mantel of marble; the ormolu clock,
all the decorous and decorated gentility which marked the
irreproachable correctness of whoever had furnished the apartment.
Dark and heavy hangings depended in front of a double door leading
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