| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Vendetta by Honore de Balzac: law for her marriage to Luigi.
Here began for her that apprenticeship to trouble which the world
strews about the path of those who do not follow its conventions.
Madame Servin received her very coldly, being much annoyed by the harm
which Ginevra's affair had inflicted on her husband, and told her, in
politely cautious words, that she must not count on her help in
future. Too proud to persist, but amazed at a selfishness hitherto
unknown to her, the girl took a room in the lodging-house that was
nearest to that of Luigi. The son of the Portas passed all his days at
the feet of his future wife; and his youthful love, the purity of his
words, dispersed the clouds from the mind of the banished daughter;
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: them; and that they begged of him to write to me to think of the
promise I had made to fetch them away, that they might see their
country again before they died.
But I was gone a wildgoose chase indeed, and they that will have
any more of me must be content to follow me into a new variety of
follies, hardships, and wild adventures, wherein the justice of
Providence may be duly observed; and we may see how easily Heaven
can gorge us with our own desires, make the strongest of our wishes
be our affliction, and punish us most severely with those very
things which we think it would be our utmost happiness to be
allowed to possess. Whether I had business or no business, away I
Robinson Crusoe |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Malbone: An Oldport Romance by Thomas Wentworth Higginson: the piazza, talking sentiment and sarcasm, regardless of
hearers.
"When we are young," he would say, "we are all idealists in
love. Every imaginative boy has such a passion, while his
intellect is crude and his senses indifferent. It is the
height of bliss. All other pleasures are not worth its pains.
With older men this ecstasy of the imagination is rare; it is
the senses that clutch or reason which holds."
"Is that an improvement?" asked some juvenile listener.
"No!" said Philip, strongly. "Reason is cold and sensuality
hateful; a man of any feeling must feed his imagination; there
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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 Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens: behind him, snatched the bridle, turned into Leather Lane, which
was close at hand, and urged the frightened horse into a heavy
trot.
He looked back, once, before he left the street; and looked upon a
sight not easily to be erased, even from his remembrance, so long
as he had life.
The vintner's house with a half-a-dozen others near at hand, was
one great, glowing blaze. All night, no one had essayed to quench
the flames, or stop their progress; but now a body of soldiers
were actively engaged in pulling down two old wooden houses, which
were every moment in danger of taking fire, and which could
Barnaby Rudge |
