| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Collection of Beatrix Potter by Beatrix Potter: and remember to blow your nose"--
(Aunt Pettitoes passed round the
handkerchief again)--"beware of
traps, hen roosts, bacon and eggs;
always walk upon your hind legs."
Pigling Bland, who was a sedate
little pig, looked solemnly at his
mother, a tear trickled down his
cheek.
Aunt Pettitoes turned to the
other--"Now son Alexander take
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Albert Savarus by Honore de Balzac: manners; it is vulgar. In French you would call it inartistic. It is
better to be frank than to harbor cold or hostile feelings towards a
friend, and you have already proved yourself my friend. Perhaps I have
gone too far with you. You must take me to be a very ordinary woman."
--Rodolphe made many signs of denial.--"Yes," said the bookseller's
wife, going on without noticing this pantomime, which, however, she
plainly saw. "I have detected that, and naturally I have reconsidered
my conduct. Well! I will put an end to everything by a few words of
deep truth. Understand this, Rodolphe: I feel in myself the strength
to stifle a feeling if it were not in harmony with my ideas or
anticipation of what true love is. I could love--as we can love in
Albert Savarus |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tom Sawyer Abroad by Mark Twain: "Wandering," he says, kinder troubled --" wander-
ing, without any doubt. She's in a wind now that's
blowing her south of east. We don't know how long
that's been going on, either."
So then he p'inted her east, and said he would hold
her there till we rousted out the breakfast. The pro-
fessor had laid in everything a body could want; he
couldn't 'a' been better fixed. There wasn't no milk
for the coffee, but there was water, and everything
else you could want, and a charcoal stove and the
fixings for it, and pipes and cigars and matches; and
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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 Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: believe that about the whole mansion and domain there hung an
atmosphere peculiar to themselves and their immediate vicinity--
an atmosphere which had no affinity with the air of heaven, but
which had reeked up from the decayed trees, and the grey wall,
and the silent tarn--a pestilent and mystic vapour, dull,
sluggish, faintly discernible, and leaden-hued.
Shaking off from my spirit what must have been a dream,
I scanned more narrowly the real aspect of the building. Its
principal feature seemed to be that of an excessive antiquity.
The discoloration of ages had been great. Minute fungi
overspread the whole exterior, hanging in a fine tangled web-work
The Fall of the House of Usher |
