| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Paradise Lost by John Milton: Engaging me to emulate; but, short
Of thy perfection, how shall I attain,
Adam, from whose dear side I boast me sprung,
And gladly of our union hear thee speak,
One heart, one soul in both; whereof good proof
This day affords, declaring thee resolved,
Rather than death, or aught than death more dread,
Shall separate us, linked in love so dear,
To undergo with me one guilt, one crime,
If any be, of tasting this fair fruit;
Whose virtue for of good still good proceeds,
Paradise Lost |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: bottles of champagne."
"We are just coming to it," returned Bixiou. "You have followed the
course of all the rivulets which make up that forty thousand livres a
year which so many people envy. By this time Rastignac held the
threads of all these lives in his hand."
"Desroches, the Matifats, Beaudenord, the d'Aldriggers, d'Aiglemont?"
"Yes, and a hundred others," assented Bixiou.
"Oh, come now, how?" cried Finot. "I know a few things, but I cannot
see a glimpse of an answer to this riddle."
"Blondet has roughly given you the account of Nucingen's first two
suspensions of payment; now for the third, with full details.--After
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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 Night and Day by Virginia Woolf: neighboring field. He shouted, too, and the light stood still.
"That's Christopher, come in already, and gone to feed his chickens,"
she said.
She introduced him to Ralph, who could see only a tall figure in
gaiters, rising from a fluttering circle of soft feathery bodies, upon
whom the light fell in wavering discs, calling out now a bright spot
of yellow, now one of greenish-black and scarlet. Mary dipped her hand
in the bucket he carried, and was at once the center of a circle also;
and as she cast her grain she talked alternately to the birds and to
her brother, in the same clucking, half-inarticulate voice, as it
sounded to Ralph, standing on the outskirts of the fluttering feathers
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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 Two Noble Kinsmen by William Shakespeare: sweete
a rebuke, that I could wish my selfe a Sigh to be so chid, or at
least a Sigher to be comforted.
WOOER.
I never saw 'em.
IAILOR.
The Duke himselfe came privately in the night,
[Enter Palamon, and Arcite, above.]
and so did they: what the reason of it is, I know not: Looke,
yonder
they are! that's Arcite lookes out.
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