| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin: was entombed, it is certain that this curious quadruped
lived long after the sea was inhabited by its present
shells. I was at first much surprised how a large quadruped
could so lately have subsisted, in lat. 49 degs. 15', on these
wretched gravel plains, with their stunted vegetation; but
the relationship of the Macrauchenia to the Guanaco, now
an inhabitant of the most sterile parts, partly explains this
difficulty.
The relationship, though distant, between the Macrauchenia
and the Guanaco, between the Toxodon and the
Capybara, -- the closer relationship between the many extinct
The Voyage of the Beagle |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Scenes from a Courtesan's Life by Honore de Balzac: --a woman concerning whom the superior police have communicated a
report to the Prefecture. He is this woman's pupil and idol; she is
his father's sister, her name is Jacqueline Collin. This wretched
woman carries on a trade as a wardrobe purchaser, and by the
connection this business has secured her she gets hold of many family
secrets. If Jacques Collin has intrusted those papers, which would be
his salvation, to any one's keeping, it is to that of this creature.
Have her arrested."
The public prosecutor gave Camusot a keen look, as much as to say,
"This man is not such a fool as I thought him; he is still young, and
does not yet know how to handle the reins of justice."
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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 Chance by Joseph Conrad: arguing, preaching, remonstrating? Had he discovered in himself a
capacity and a taste for that sort of thing? Or was he perhaps, in
an intense dislike for the job, beating about the bush and only
puzzling Captain Anthony, the providential man, who, if he expected
the girl to appear at any moment, must have been on tenterhooks all
the time, and beside himself with impatience to see the back of his
brother-in-law. How was it that he had not got rid of Fyne long
before in any case? I don't mean by actually throwing him out of
the window, but in some other resolute manner.
Surely Fyne had not impressed him. That he was an impressionable
man I could not doubt. The presence of the girl there on the
Chance |
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 At the Sign of the Cat & Racket by Honore de Balzac: on 'Change, to watch as anxiously as at the gaming-table whether
Etienne and Co. will fail or no, to see a regiment of Guards march
past all dressed in your cloth, to trip your neighbor up--honestly of
course!--to make the goods cheaper than others can; then to carry out
an undertaking which you have planned, which begins, grows, totters,
and succeeds! to know the workings of every house of business as well
as a minister of police, so as never to make a mistake; to hold up
your head in the midst of wrecks, to have friends by correspondence in
every manufacturing town; is not that a perpetual game, Joseph? That
is life, that is! I shall die in that harness, like old Chevrel, but
taking it easy now, all the same."
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