| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: they did.
But here we had a most horrible sight; for riding up to the
entrance where the horse came out, we found the carcasses of
another horse and of two men, devoured by the ravenous creatures;
and one of the men was no doubt the same whom we heard fire the
gun, for there lay a gun just by him fired off; but as to the man,
his head and the upper part of his body was eaten up. This filled
us with horror, and we knew not what course to take; but the
creatures resolved us soon, for they gathered about us presently,
in hopes of prey; and I verily believe there were three hundred of
them. It happened, very much to our advantage, that at the
Robinson Crusoe |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: a miracle, that the toy did not vanish in her grasp; a miserably
absurd idea, that she should go on perplexing her stiff and sombre
intellect with the question how to tempt little boys into her premises!
Yet such is undoubtedly her object. Now she places a gingerbread
elephant against the window, but with so tremulous a touch that it
tumbles upon the floor, with the dismemberment of three legs and its
trunk; it has ceased to be an elephant, and has become a few bits of
musty gingerbread. There, again, she has upset a tumbler of marbles,
all of which roll different ways, and each individual marble,
devil-directed, into the most difficult obscurity that it can find.
Heaven help our poor old Hepzibah, and forgive us for taking a ludicrous
House of Seven Gables |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from From London to Land's End by Daniel Defoe: pickling; and they are barrelled up here, and sent not only to
London, but to the West Indies, and to Spain and Italy, and other
parts. It is observed more pearls are found in the Poole oysters,
and larger, than in any other oysters about England.
As the entrance into this large bay is narrow, so it is made
narrower by an island, called Branksey, which, lying the very month
of the passage, divides it into two, and where there is an old
castle, called Branksey Castle, built to defend the entrance, and
this strength was very great advantage to the trade of this port in
the time of the late war with France.
Wareham is a neat town and full of people, having a share of trade
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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 Ball at Sceaux by Honore de Balzac: He glanced inquiringly from his brother to his partner, guessed
everything, clasped his hands, fixed his eyes on the ceiling, and
began to laugh, saying, "I am an idiot! You are the handsomest person
here; my brother keeps stealing glances at you; he is dancing in spite
of his illness, and you pretend not to see him. Make him happy," he
added, as he led her back to her old uncle. "I shall not be jealous,
but I shall always shiver a little at calling you my sister----"
The lovers, however, were to prove as inexorable to each other as they
were to themselves. At about two in the morning, refreshments were
served in an immense corridor, where, to leave persons of the same
coterie free to meet each other, the tables were arranged as in a
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