| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Damaged Goods by Upton Sinclair: of sympathy, because they are suffering. If they have committed
a fault, they have at least the plea that they are expiating it.
No, sir, let me hear no more of that hypocrisy. Recall your own
youth, sir. That which afflicts your son-in-law, you have
deserved it just as much as he--more than he, perhaps.
Therefore, have pity on him; have for him the toleration which
the unpunished criminal ought to have for the criminal less
fortunate than himself upon whom the penalty has fallen. Is that
not so?"
Monsieur Loches had been listening to this discourse with the
feeling of a thief before the bar. There was nothing that he
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: extinguished their lights and retired, as I conjectured, to rest."
Chapter 12
"I lay on my straw, but I could not sleep. I thought of the
occurrences of the day. What chiefly struck me was the gentle
manners of these people, and I longed to join them, but dared not.
I remembered too well the treatment I had suffered the night before
from the barbarous villagers, and resolved, whatever course of
conduct I might hereafter think it right to pursue, that for
the present I would remain quietly in my hovel, watching and
endeavouring to discover the motives which influenced their actions.
"The cottagers arose the next morning before the sun. The young
Frankenstein |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: held to embody something sacred, are soon to pass out of men's
daily use, and be forgotten. Just imagine, for a moment, how
much of human evil will crumble away, with this one change! What
we call real estate--the solid ground to build a house on--is the
broad foundation on which nearly all the guilt of this world rests.
A man will commit almost any wrong,--he will heap up an immense
pile of wickedness, as hard as granite, and which will weigh as
heavily upon his soul, to eternal ages,--only to build a great,
gloomy, dark-chambered mansion, for himself to die in, and for
his posterity to be miserable in. He lays his own dead corpse
beneath the underpinning, as one may say, and hangs his frowning
House of Seven Gables |
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 Hamlet by William Shakespeare: And Mermaid-like, a while they bore her vp,
Which time she chaunted snatches of old tunes,
As one incapable of her owne distresse,
Or like a creature Natiue, and indued
Vnto that Element: but long it could not be,
Till that her garments, heauy with her drinke,
Pul'd the poore wretch from her melodious buy,
To muddy death
Laer. Alas then, is she drown'd?
Queen. Drown'd, drown'd
Laer. Too much of water hast thou poore Ophelia,
Hamlet |
