| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 1 by Alexis de Toqueville: Clerk with lowest salary ............. 1,000
Clerk with highest salary ............ 1,600
Chief Clerk .......................... 2,000
Secretary of State ................... 6,000
The President ........................ 25,000
France
Ministere des Finances
Hussier ........................... 1,500 fr.
Clerk with lowest salary, 1,000 to 1,800 fr.
Clerk with highest salary 3,200 to 8,600 fr.
Secretaire-general ................20,000 fr.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dream Life and Real Life by Olive Schreiner: the hotel; they watched for her at street corners; they hated the man she
bowed to or walked with down the street. They brought flowers to the front
door; they offered her their horses; they begged her to marry them when
they dared. Partly, there was something noble and heroic in this devotion
of men to the best woman they knew; partly there was something natural in
it, that these men, shut off from the world, should pour at the feet of one
woman the worship that otherwise would have been given to twenty; and
partly there was something mean in their envy of one another. If she had
raised her little finger, I suppose, she might have married any one out of
twenty of them.
Then I came. I do not think I was prettier; I do not think I was so pretty
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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 The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy: impossible that he should not, by degrees, cease to regard
the ex-corn-merchant as more than one of his other workmen.
Henchard saw this, and concealed his feelings under a cover
of stolidity, fortifying his heart by drinking more freely
at the Three Mariners every evening.
Often did Elizabeth-Jane, in her endeavours to prevent his
taking other liquor, carry tea to him in a little basket at
five o'clock. Arriving one day on this errand she found her
stepfather was measuring up clover-seed and rape-seed in the
corn-stores on the top floor, and she ascended to him. Each
floor had a door opening into the air under a cat-head, from
The Mayor of Casterbridge |
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 Twilight Land by Howard Pyle: So he straightway took a spade and went out into the garden,
where the Talisman had told him not to go. He dug and dug under
the cherry-tree, and by-and-by his spade struck something hard.
It was a vessel of brass, and it was full of silver money. Upon
the lid of the vessel were these words, engraved in the
handwriting of the old man who had died:
"My son, this vessel full of silver has been brought from the
treasure-house of the ancient kings of Egypt. Take this, then,
that thou findest; advise with the talisman; be wise and
prosper."
"And they call that the Talisman of Wisdom," said the young man.
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