| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Dracula by Bram Stoker: And when Quincey give him something from his pocket which crackle
as he roll it up, and put it in a so small bag which he have hid deep
in his clothing, he still better fellow and humble servant to us.
He come with us, and ask many men who are rough and hot.
These be better fellows too when they have been no more thirsty.
They say much of blood and bloom, and of others which I comprehend not,
though I guess what they mean. But nevertheless they tell us all
things which we want to know.
"They make known to us among them, how last afternoon at about
five o'clock comes a man so hurry. A tall man, thin and pale,
with high nose and teeth so white, and eyes that seem to be burning.
Dracula |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Jolly Corner by Henry James: himself produced as yet a dread, produced certainly a strain,
beyond the liveliest he was likely to feel. They fell for him into
categories, they fairly became familiar, the signs, for his own
perception, of the alarm his presence and his vigilance created;
though leaving him always to remark, portentously, on his probably
having formed a relation, his probably enjoying a consciousness,
unique in the experience of man. People enough, first and last,
had been in terror of apparitions, but who had ever before so
turned the tables and become himself, in the apparitional world, an
incalculable terror? He might have found this sublime had he quite
dared to think of it; but he didn't too much insist, truly, on that
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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 Letters of Two Brides by Honore de Balzac: temples, and cast a sallow tinge over the beautiful face.
Before replying, I kissed her hands.
"Dear aunt," I said, "I shall never forget your kindness; and if it
has not made your nunnery all that it ought to be for my health of
body and soul, you may be sure nothing short of a broken heart will
bring me back again--and that you would not wish for me. You will not
see me here again till my royal lover has deserted me, and I warn you
that if I catch him, death alone shall tear him from me. I fear no
Montespan."
She smiled and said:
"Go, madcap, and take your idle fancies with you. There is certainly
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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 Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson: for all concerned."
"I see you must know all," said Archie. "Where did you hear it?"
"In the mart of scandal, in the Parliament House," said Glenalmond. "It
runs riot below among the bar and the public, but it sifts up to us upon
the bench, and rumour has some of her voices even in the divisions."
Carstairs returned at this moment, and rapidly laid out a little supper;
during which Lord Glenalmond spoke at large and a little vaguely on
indifferent subjects, so that it might be rather said of him that he
made a cheerful noise, than that he contributed to human conversation;
and Archie sat upon the other side, not heeding him, brooding over his
wrongs and errors.
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