| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Master of the World by Jules Verne: some period more or less distant.
The ascension was begun according to the programme suggested. The
wind was fair and steady; the sky clear; the morning clouds were
disappearing under the vigorous rays of the sun. If the interior of
the Great Eyrie was not filled with smoke, the aeronaut would be able
to search with his glass its entire extent. If the vapors were
rising, he, no doubt, could detect their source.
The balloon rose at once to a height of fifteen hundred feet, and
there rested almost motionless for a quarter of an hour. Evidently
the east wind, which was brisk upon the Surface of the earth, did not
make itself felt at that height. Then, unlucky chance, the balloon
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy: proprietor's goods and packing them on the carts, and Dron,
liberated at Princess Mary's wish from the cupboard where he had
been confined, was standing in the yard directing the men.
"Don't put it in so carelessly," said one of the peasants, a man
with a round smiling face, taking a casket from a housemaid. "You know
it has cost money! How can you chuck it in like that or shove it under
the cord where it'll get rubbed? I don't like that way of doing
things. Let it all be done properly, according to rule. Look here, put
it under the bast matting and cover it with hay- that's the way!"
"Eh, books, books!" said another peasant, bringing out Prince
Andrew's library cupboards. "Don't catch up against it! It's heavy,
War and Peace |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy: and grew almost gay. The marble hardness left her
face, she moved with something of her old bounding
step, and flushed in all her young beauty.
At moments, in spite of thought, she would reply to
their inquiries with a manner of superiority, as if
recognizing that her experiences in the field of
courtship had, indeed, been slightly enviable. But so
far was she from being, in the words of Robert South,
"in love with her own ruin," that the illusion was
transient as lightning; cold reason came back to mock
her spasmodic weakness; the ghastliness of her
Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman |
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 Tour Through Eastern Counties of England by Daniel Defoe: want of food, as being almost starved with hunger.
22nd. The Lord Fairfax offered again an exchange of prisoners, but
the Lord Goring rejected it, because they refused conditions to the
chief gentlemen of the garrison.
During this time, two troops of the Royal Horse sallied out in the
night, resolving to break out or die: the first rode up full gallop
to the enemy's horse guards on the side of Malden road, and
exchanged their pistols with the advanced troops, and wheeling made
as if they would retire to the town; but finding they were not
immediately pursued, they wheeled about to the right, and passing
another guard at a distance, without being perfectly discovered,
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