| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson:
Treasure Island |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: turned over on the other side, rested her fresh and rosy cheek on her
hand, and went to sleep again.
It was late--that is, according to country customs--when the lady
awoke again. Her husband was snoring more loudly than ever. She
recollected that he had come home at four o'clock, and not wishing to
awaken him, got up alone, and put on her slippers, which her husband
had had sent for her from St. Petersburg, and a white dressing-gown
which fell about her like the waters of a fountain. Then she passed
into her dressing-room, and after washing in water as fresh as
herself, went to her toilet table. She looked at herself twice in the
glass, and thought she looked very pretty that morning. This
Taras Bulba and Other Tales |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: I have heard, was thus infected by the father; and the distemper began
to appear upon some of them even before he found it upon himself.
But searching more narrowly, it appeared he had been affected some
time; and as soon as he found that his family had been poisoned by
himself he went distracted, and would have laid violent hands upon
himself, but was kept from that by those who looked to him, and in a
few days died.
(2) The other particular is, that many people having been well to the
best of their own judgement, or by the best observation which they
could make of themselves for several days, and only finding a decay
of appetite, or a light sickness upon their stomachs; nay, some whose
A Journal of the Plague Year |
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 Recruit by Honore de Balzac: embarrassed the good mayor not a little. The judge of the district
court held firmly to the theory of a Chouan leader or a body of
Vendeans hotly pursued. Others were convinced that the person thus
harbored was a noble escaped from the Paris prisons. In short, they
all suspected the countess of being guilty of one of those
generosities, which the laws of the day called crimes, and punished on
the scaffold. The public prosecutor remarked in a low voice that it
would be best to say no more, but to do their best to save the poor
woman from the abyss toward which she was hurrying.
"If you talk about this affair," he said, "I shall be obliged to take
notice of it, and search her house, and THEN--"
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