| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: and uttering groans of agony. The Mother Superior was standing on the
right side of the bed. The three candles on the bureau made red blurs,
and the windows were dimmed by the fog outside. The nuns carried
Madame Aubain from the room.
For two nights, Felicite never left the corpse. She would repeat the
same prayers, sprinkle holy water over the sheets, get up, come back
to the bed and contemplate the body. At the end of the first vigil,
she noticed that the face had taken on a yellow tinge, the lips grew
blue, the nose grew pinched, the eyes were sunken. She kissed them
several times and would not have been greatly astonished had Virginia
opened them; to souls like this the supernatural is always quite
A Simple Soul |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Bronte Sisters: reflection.'
'None of your sneers, Mrs. Huntingdon. I have the sense to see
that I'm not always quite correct, but sometimes I think that's no
great matter, as long as I injure nobody but myself - '
'It is a great matter,' interrupted I, 'both to yourself (as you
will hereafter find to your cost) and to all connected with you,
most especially your wife. But, indeed, it is nonsense to talk
about injuring no one but yourself: it is impossible to injure
yourself, especially by such acts as we allude to, without injuring
hundreds, if not thousands, besides, in a greater or less, degree,
either by the evil you do or the good you leave undone.'
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair: swung the other way. Hour after hour this had continued--the darkness
had fallen and the room was dim from the light of two smoky oil lamps.
The musicians had spent all their fine frenzy by now, and played only
one tune, wearily, ploddingly. There were twenty bars or so of it, and
when they came to the end they began again. Once every ten minutes or
so they would fail to begin again, but instead would sink back exhausted;
a circumstance which invariably brought on a painful and terrifying scene,
that made the fat policeman stir uneasily in his sleeping place behind
the door.
It was all Marija Berczynskas. Marija was one of those hungry souls who
cling with desperation to the skirts of the retreating muse. All day long
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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 War in the Air by H. G. Wells: blockaded his ports, secured his coaling stations, and hunted
down any stray cruisers that threatened your ports of commerce.
But to blockade and watch a coastline is one thing, to blockade
and watch the whole surface of a country is another, and cruisers
and privateers are things that take long to make, that cannot be
packed up and hidden and carried unostentatiously from point to
point. In aerial war the stronger side, even supposing it
destroyed the main battle fleet of the weaker, had then either to
patrol and watch or destroy every possible point at which he
might produce another and perhaps a novel and more deadly form of
flyer. It meant darkening his air with airships. It meant
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