| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from King Henry VI by William Shakespeare: thou wilt betray me, and get a thousand crowns of the king
by carrying my head to him; but I'll make thee eat iron like
an ostrich, and swallow my sword like a great pin, ere thou
and I part.
IDEN.
Why, rude companion, whatsoe'er thou be, I know
thee not! why, then, should I betray thee?
Is 't not enough to break into my garden,
And, like a thief, to come to rob my grounds,
Climbing my walls in spite of me the owner,
But thou wilt brave me with these saucy terms?
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Middlemarch by George Eliot: the vexation I have caused you."
Mr. Vincy from his chair threw a quick glance upward at his son,
who had advanced near to him, and then gave his hand, saying hurriedly,
"Yes, yes, let us say no more."
Fred went through much more narrative and explanation with his mother,
but she was inconsolable, having before her eyes what perhaps her husband
had never thought of, the certainty that Fred would marry Mary Garth,
that her life would henceforth be spoiled by a perpetual infusion
of Garths and their ways, and that her darling boy, with his beautiful
face and stylish air "beyond anybody else's son in Middlemarch,"
would be sure to get like that family in plainness of appearance
Middlemarch |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: effect which the physique of the grey walls and turrets, and
of the dim tarn into which they all looked down, had, at length,
brought about upon the morale of his existence.
He admitted, however, although with hesitation, that much of
the peculiar gloom which thus afflicted him could be traced to a
more natural and far more palpable origin--to the severe and
long-continued illness--indeed to the evidently approaching dis-
solution--of a tenderly beloved sister--his sole companion for
long years--his last and only relative on earth. "Her decease,"
he said, with a bitterness which I can never forget, "would leave
him (him the hopeless and the frail) the last of the ancient race
The Fall of the House of Usher |
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 Commission in Lunacy by Honore de Balzac: thus, by invincible habit, showed how his mind was soaked in wiliness.
As soon as Popinot had surveyed the ground, so to speak, on which he
stood, he saw that it would be necessary to have recourse to the
cleverest subtleties, the most elaborately wrapped up and disguised,
which were in use in the Courts, to detect the truth.
Bianchon sat cold and stern, as a man who has made up his mind to
endure torture without revealing his sufferings; but in his heart he
wished that his uncle could only trample on this woman as we trample
on a viper--a comparison suggested to him by the Marquise's long
dress, by the curve of her attitude, her long neck, small head, and
undulating movements.
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