| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy: window at a salient angle of the hill-top town over infinite miles
of valley westward, announced as by words a place and person given
over to study, he was not exactly studying.
The interior of the room--the books, the furniture,
the schoolmaster's loose coat, his attitude at the table,
even the flickering of the fire, bespoke the same dignified
tale of undistracted research--more than creditable to a man
who had had no advantages beyond those of his own making.
And yet the tale, true enough till latterly, was not true now.
What he was regarding was not history. They were historic notes,
written in a bold womanly hand at his dictation some months before,
Jude the Obscure |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Talisman by Walter Scott: The physician meanwhile looked on him with a countenance of
surprise, not unmingled with contempt; for the Eastern people
make no allowance for these mercurial changes in the temper, and
consider open laughter, upon almost any account, as derogatory to
the dignity of man, and becoming only to women and children. At
length the sage addressed the King when he saw him more
composed:--
"A doom of death should not issue from laughing lips. Let thy
servant hope that thou hast granted him this man's life."
"Take the freedom of a thousand captives instead," said Richard;
"restore so many of thy countrymen to their tents and families,
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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 The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: in regard to the dwelling which he tenanted, and whence, for many
years, he had never ventured forth--in regard to an influence
whose supposititious force was conveyed in terms too shadowy here
to be re-stated--an influence which some peculiarities in the
mere form and substance of his family mansion, had, by
dint of long sufferance, he said, obtained over his spirit--an
effect which the physique of the grey walls and turrets, and
of the dim tarn into which they all looked down, had, at length,
brought about upon the morale of his existence.
He admitted, however, although with hesitation, that much of
the peculiar gloom which thus afflicted him could be traced to a
The Fall of the House of Usher |
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 Tom Grogan by F. Hopkinson Smith: have to do it, whether I wanted to or not; or maybe ye think I'd
oughter chuck some o' me own boys into the road because they don't
belong to yer branch, as ye call it, and git a lot o' dead beats
to work in their places who don't know a horse from a coal-bucket.
An' ye'll help me, will ye? Come out here on the front porch, Mr.
Crimmins"--opening the door with a jerk. "Do ye see that stable
over there! Well, it covers seven horses; an' the shed has six
carts with all the harness. Back of it--perhaps if ye stand on
yer toes even a little feller like you can see the top of another
shed. That one has me derricks an' tools."
Crimmins tried to interrupt long enough to free McGaw's red
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