| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso: Now weak and feeble cast their limbs along,
Unwieldly burdens, on the burned clay,
And in each vein a smouldering fire there dwelt,
Which dried their flesh and solid bones did melt.
LXII
Languished the steed late fierce, and proffered grass,
His fodder erst, despised and from him cast,
Each step he stumbled, and which lofty was
And high advanced before now fell his crest,
His conquests gotten all forgotten pass,
Nor with desire of glory swelled his breast,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Underground City by Jules Verne: which would burn for twelve hours. It was more than was necessary
for the journey there and back, including the time for the working--
supposing a working was possible.
"To work! to work!" shouted Ford, when the party reached the further
end of the passage; and he grasped a heavy crowbar and brandished it.
"Stop one instant," said Starr. "Let us see if any change has
taken place, and if the fire-damp still escapes through the crevices."
"You are right, Mr. Starr," said Harry. "Whoever stopped it up
yesterday may have done it again to-day!"
Madge, seated on a rock, carefully observed the excavation,
and the wall which was to be blasted.
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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 Don Quixote by Miquel de Cervantes: Alfonso VI, and was rewarded by divers grants of land in the
neighbourhood of Toledo. On one of his acquisitions, about two leagues
from the city, he built himself a castle which he called Cervatos,
because "he was lord of the solar of Cervatos in the Montana," as
the mountain region extending from the Basque Provinces to Leon was
always called. At his death in battle in 1143, the castle passed by
his will to his son Alfonso Munio, who, as territorial or local
surnames were then coming into vogue in place of the simple
patronymic, took the additional name of Cervatos. His eldest son Pedro
succeeded him in the possession of the castle, and followed his
example in adopting the name, an assumption at which the younger
Don Quixote |
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 Atheist's Mass by Honore de Balzac: why you founded this mass."
"Faith! my dear boy," said Desplein, "I am on the verge of the
tomb; I may safely tell you about the beginning of my life."
At this moment Bianchon and the great man were in the Rue des
Quatre-Vents, one of the worst streets in Paris. Desplein pointed
to the sixth floor of one of the houses looking like obelisks, of
which the narrow door opens into a passage with a winding
staircase at the end, with windows appropriately termed "borrowed
lights"--or, in French, jours de souffrance. It was a greenish
structure; the ground floor occupied by a furniture-dealer, while
each floor seemed to shelter a different and independent form of
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