| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells: I stepped into the stream. I jumped out again pretty quickly,
for the water was almost boiling. I noticed too there was a thin
sulphurous scum drifting upon its coiling water. Almost immediately
came a turn in the ravine, and the indistinct blue horizon.
The nearer sea was flashing the sun from a myriad facets.
I saw my death before me; but I was hot and panting, with the warm
blood oozing out on my face and running pleasantly through my veins.
I felt more than a touch of exultation too, at having distanced
my pursuers. It was not in me then to go out and drown myself yet.
I stared back the way I had come.
I listened. Save for the hum of the gnats and the chirp of some small
The Island of Doctor Moreau |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Just Folks by Edgar A. Guest: Here, where the wood fire brightly blazes,
You'll hear from us our neighbor's praises.
Here, that they'll never grow to doubt us,
We keep our friends always about us;
An' here, though storms outside may pelter
Is refuge for our friends, an' shelter.
We've one rule here,
An' that is to be pleasant.
The folks we know are always present,
Or very near.
An' though they dwell in many places,
Just Folks |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: concupiscence of chattels was very like that of a true passion, which
often begins, in a young man, with cold admiration for a woman whom he
ends in loving forever.
The apartment, reached by a stone staircase, was on the side of the
house that faced south. The Abbe Troubert occupied the ground-floor,
and Mademoiselle Gamard the first floor of the main building, looking
on the street. When Chapeloud took possession of his rooms they were
bare of furniture, and the ceilings were blackened with smoke. The
stone mantelpieces, which were very badly cut, had never been painted.
At first, the only furniture the poor canon could put in was a bed, a
table, a few chairs, and the books he possessed. The apartment was
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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 Faraday as a Discoverer by John Tyndall: assaults it so changed its character as to become a thing totally
different from the theory proposed by Volta. The more persistently
it was defended, however, the more clearly did it show itself to be
a congeries of devices, bearing the stamp of dialectic skill rather
than of natural truth.
In conclusion, Faraday brought to bear upon it an argument which,
had its full weight and purport been understood at the time, would
have instantly decided the controversy. 'The contact theory,'
he urged, 'assumed that a force which is able to overcome powerful
resistance, as for instance that of the conductors, good or bad,
through which the current passes, and that again of the electrolytic
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