| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Ball at Sceaux by Honore de Balzac: stranger" held in his hand a parcel of patterns, which left no doubt
as to his honorable profession.
Emilie felt an icy shudder, though no one perceived it. Thanks to the
good breeding of the best society, she completely concealed the rage
in her heart, and answered her sister-in-law with the words, "I knew
it," with a fulness of intonation and inimitable decision which the
most famous actress of the time might have envied her. She went
straight up to the desk. Longueville looked up, put the patterns in
his pocket with distracting coolness, bowed to Mademoiselle de
Fontaine, and came forward, looking at her keenly.
"Mademoiselle," he said to the shopgirl, who followed him, looking
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tom Sawyer Abroad by Mark Twain: and says:
"That's it -- it's the one I've been looking for,
sure. If I'm right, it's the one the dervish took the
man into and showed him all the treasures."
So we begun to gaze, and he begun to tell about it
out of the Arabian Nights.
CHAPTER X.
THE TREASURE-HILL
TOM said it happened like this.
A dervish was stumping it along through the
Desert, on foot, one blazing hot day, and he had come
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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 At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft: move after one day’s work and one night’s rest.
Our labors,
however, were not very steady after 4 P.M., for about that time
Lake began sending in the most extraordinary and excited messages.
His working day had started unpropitiously, since an aeroplane
survey of the nearly-exposed rock surfaces showed an entire absence
of those Archaean and primordial strata for which he was looking,
and which formed so great a part of the colossal peaks that loomed
up at a tantalizing distance from the camp. Most of the rocks
glimpsed were apparently Jurassic and Comanchian sandstones and
Permian and Triassic schists, with now and then a glossy black
At the Mountains of Madness |
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 Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy: commodious edifice, Grace began to feel that she had come a long
journey since the morning; and when her father had been up
himself, as well as his wife, to see that her room was comfortable
and the fire burning, she prepared to retire for the night. No
sooner, however, was she in bed than her momentary sleepiness took
itself off, and she wished she had stayed up longer. She amused
herself by listening to the old familiar noises that she could
hear to be still going on down-stairs, and by looking towards the
window as she lay. The blind had been drawn up, as she used to
have it when a girl, and she could just discern the dim tree-tops
against the sky on the neighboring hill. Beneath this meeting-
The Woodlanders |
