| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: notabilities make up all totalities. He was a small, short, youngish
man, sprinkled all over his face with freckles, and wearing redundant
yellow hair. A long-skirted, cabalistically-cut coat of a faded
walnut tinge enveloped him; the overlapping sleeves of which were
rolled up on his wrists. A deep, settled, fanatic delirium was in
his eyes.
So soon as this figure had been first descried, Stubb had
exclaimed--"That's he! that's he!--the long-togged scaramouch the
Town-Ho's company told us of!" Stubb here alluded to a strange story
told of the Jeroboam, and a certain man among her crew, some time
previous when the Pequod spoke the Town-Ho. According to this
Moby Dick |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: I shuddered with horror; for just then, by the light of a tall torch
and two altar candles, I saw distinctly that this woman was fresh from
the graveyard. She had no hair. I turned to fly. She raised her
fleshless arm and encircled me with a band of iron set with spikes,
and as she raised it a cry went up all about us, the cry of millions
of voices--the shouting of the dead!
"It is my purpose to make thee happy for ever," she said. "Thou art my
son."
We were sitting before the hearth, the ashes lay cold upon it; the old
shrunken woman grasped my hand so tightly in hers that I could not
choose but stay. I looked fixedly at her, striving to read the story
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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 Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin by Robert Louis Stevenson: the same two or three words for a whole weary afternoon. And yet
he gained and retained warm feelings from far the most of those who
fell under his domination, and particularly (it is pleasant to
remember) from the girls. After the slipshod training and the
incomplete accomplishments of a girls' school, there was something
at first annoying, at last exciting and bracing, in this high
standard of accomplishment and perseverance.
III.
It did not matter why he entered upon any study or employment,
whether for amusement like the Greek tailoring or the Highland
reels, whether from a desire to serve the public as with his
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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 Kenilworth by Walter Scott: castles, so far from court that you hear neither the sorrow of
your friends nor the glee of your enemies, We will suppose, too,
that your successful rival will be satisfied (a thing greatly to
be doubted) with abridging and cutting away the branches of the
great tree which so long kept the sun from him, and that he does
not insist upon tearing you up by the roots. Well; the late
prime favourite of England, who wielded her general's staff and
controlled her parliaments, is now a rural baron, hunting,
hawking, drinking fat ale with country esquires, and mustering
his men at the command of the high sheriff--"
"Varney, forbear!" said the Earl.
Kenilworth |
