| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Manon Lescaut by Abbe Prevost: dried up the ordinary channels of grief. It was thus impossible
for me, in this posture upon the grave, to continue for any time
in possession of my faculties.
"After what you have listened to, the remainder of my own
history would ill repay the attention you seem inclined to bestow
upon it. Synnelet having been carried into the town and
skilfully examined, it was found that, so far from being dead, he
was not even dangerously wounded. He informed his uncle of the
manner in which the affray had occurred between us, and he
generously did justice to my conduct on the occasion. I was sent
for; and as neither of us could be found, our flight was
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens: He is a saint, if ever saint drew breath on this bad earth.'
Placing his light upon a table, he walked on tiptoe to the fire,
and sitting in a chair before it with his back towards the bed,
went on communing with himself like one who thought aloud:
'The saviour of his country and his country's religion, the friend
of his poor countrymen, the enemy of the proud and harsh; beloved
of the rejected and oppressed, adored by forty thousand bold and
loyal English hearts--what happy slumbers his should be!' And here
he sighed, and warmed his hands, and shook his head as men do when
their hearts are full, and heaved another sigh, and warmed his
hands again.
Barnaby Rudge |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Herbert West: Reanimator by H. P. Lovecraft: had been killed and treated, but their trail was a blind one.
West had never fully succeeded because he had never been able
to secure a corpse sufficiently fresh. What he wanted were bodies
from which vitality had only just departed; bodies with every
cell intact and capable of receiving again the impulse toward
that mode of motion called life. There was hope that this second
and artificial life might be made perpetual by repetitions of
the injection, but we had learned that an ordinary natural life
would not respond to the action. To establish the artificial motion,
natural life must be extinct -- the specimens must be very fresh,
but genuinely dead.
Herbert West: Reanimator |
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 Study of a Woman by Honore de Balzac: parties. That, in fact, was the object of my ambition.
Neither plain nor pretty, Madame de Listomere has white teeth, a
dazzling skin, and very red lips; she is tall and well-made; her foot
is small and slender, and she does not put it forth; her eyes, far
from being dulled like those of so many Parisian women, have a gentle
glow which becomes quite magical if, by chance, she is animated. A
soul is then divined behind that rather indefinite form. If she takes
an interest in the conversation she displays a grace which is
otherwise buried beneath the precautions of cold demeanor, and then
she is charming. She does not seek success, but she obtains it. We
find that for which we do not seek: that saying is so often true that
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