| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: I was surprised that among so many men of genius who had directed
their inquiries towards the same science, that I alone should be
reserved to discover so astonishing a secret.
Remember, I am not recording the vision of a madman. The sun does not
more certainly shine in the heavens than that which I now affirm is true.
Some miracle might have produced it, yet the stages of the discovery
were distinct and probable. After days and nights of incredible labour
and fatigue, I succeeded in discovering the cause of generation and life;
nay, more, I became myself capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter.
The astonishment which I had at first experienced on this discovery
soon gave place to delight and rapture. After so much time spent in
Frankenstein |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: it. My boatmen seem to me suspicious. I am not sorry to spend the
night with two brave young men, two French soldiers, for, between
ourselves, I have a hundred thousand francs in gold and diamonds in my
valise."
The friendly caution with which this imprudent confidence was received
by the two young men, seemed to reassure the German. The landlord
assisted in taking off one of the mattresses, and when all was
arranged for the best he bade them good-night and went off to bed.
The merchant and the surgeons laughed over the nature of their
pillows. Prosper put his case of surgical instruments and that of
Wilhelm under the end of his mattress to raise it and supply the place
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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 Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: glass thoughtfully about his finger, she, motionless, her arms
stretched along her knees in an attitude of rigid tension.
"But if you knew all this," she began at length, hardly able to
force her voice above a whisper, "how is it that when I wrote you
at the time of my husband's disappearance you said you didn't
understand his letter?"
Parvis received this without perceptible discomfiture. "Why, I
didn't understand it--strictly speaking. And it wasn't the time
to talk about it, if I had. The Elwell business was settled when
the suit was withdrawn. Nothing I could have told you would have
helped you to find your husband."
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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 Timaeus by Plato: meets. And we must not forget that the original figure of fire (i.e. the
pyramid), more than any other form, has a dividing power which cuts our
bodies into small pieces (Kepmatizei), and thus naturally produces that
affection which we call heat; and hence the origin of the name (thepmos,
Kepma). Now, the opposite of this is sufficiently manifest; nevertheless
we will not fail to describe it. For the larger particles of moisture
which surround the body, entering in and driving out the lesser, but not
being able to take their places, compress the moist principle in us; and
this from being unequal and disturbed, is forced by them into a state of
rest, which is due to equability and compression. But things which are
contracted contrary to nature are by nature at war, and force themselves
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