| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Captain Stormfield by Mark Twain: such another stir here in years, as his coming is going to raise. -
And I've always noticed this peculiarity about a dead barkeeper -
he not only expects all hands to turn out when he arrives, but he
expects to be received with a torchlight procession."
"I reckon he is disappointed, then."
"No, he isn't. No man is allowed to be disappointed here.
Whatever he wants, when he comes - that is, any reasonable and
unsacrilegious thing - he can have. There's always a few millions
or billions of young folks around who don't want any better
entertainment than to fill up their lungs and swarm out with their
torches and have a high time over a barkeeper. It tickles the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen: the Princess; and therein you might read that every good-looking young man was
at liberty to come to the palace and speak to the Princess; and he who spoke
in such wise as showed he felt himself at home there, that one the Princess
would choose for her husband.
"Yes, Yes," said the Raven, "you may believe it; it is as true as I am sitting
here. People came in crowds; there was a crush and a hurry, but no one was
successful either on the first or second day. They could all talk well enough
when they were out in the street; but as soon as they came inside the
palace gates, and saw the guard richly dressed in silver, and the lackeys in
gold on the staircase, and the large illuminated saloons, then they were
abashed; and when they stood before the throne on which the Princess was
Fairy Tales |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy: "That's how she went on to me," said Henchard, "acres of
words like that, when what had happened was what I could not
cure."
"Yes," said Farfrae absently, "it is the way wi' women." But
the fact was that he knew very little of the sex; yet
detecting a sort of resemblance in style between the
effusions of the woman he worshipped and those of the
supposed stranger, he concluded that Aphrodite ever spoke
thus, whosesoever the personality she assumed.
Henchard unfolded another letter, and read it through
likewise, stopping at the subscription as before. "Her name
The Mayor of Casterbridge |
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 Moral Emblems by Robert Louis Stevenson: Required a drug to save her life.
'At once, my dear, at once,' I said,
Patted the child upon the head,
Bade her be still a loving daughter,
And filled the bottle up with water.'
'Well, and the mother?' Robin cried.
'O she!' said Ben - 'I think she died.'
'Battle and blood, death and disease,
Upon the tainted Tropic seas -
The attendant sharks that chew the cud -
The abhorred scuppers spouting blood -
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