| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens: father, having been passed among the crowd from hand to hand, stood
in Smithfield, on the outskirts of the mob, gazing at the flames
like men who had been suddenly roused from sleep. Some moments
elapsed before they could distinctly remember where they were, or
how they got there; or recollected that while they were standing
idle and listless spectators of the fire, they had tools in their
hands which had been hurriedly given them that they might free
themselves from their fetters.
Barnaby, heavily ironed as he was, if he had obeyed his first
impulse, or if he had been alone, would have made his way back to
the side of Hugh, who to his clouded intellect now shone forth with
Barnaby Rudge |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lemorne Versus Huell by Elizabeth Drew Stoddard: a black horse out of the fog, and into it again. I was very sure,
however, that I had never seen him on so pleasant a day as this!
William did not bring his horses to time; it was after six when I
went into Aunt Eliza's parlor, and found her impatient for her tea
and toast. She was crosser than the occasion warranted; but I
understood it when she gave me the outlines of a letter she desired
me to write to her lawyer in New York. Something had turned up, he
had written her; the Uxbridges believed that they had ferreted out
what would go against her. I told her that I had met the Uxbridge
carriage.
"One of them is in New York; how else could they be giving me
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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 Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: they were asking evil. He neither sought, nor supposed that he sought for
good, but others have had quite the contrary notion. I believe that if the
God whom you are about to consult should appear to you, and, in
anticipation of your request, enquired whether you would be contented to
become tyrant of Athens, and if this seemed in your eyes a small and mean
thing, should add to it the dominion of all Hellas; and seeing that even
then you would not be satisfied unless you were ruler of the whole of
Europe, should promise, not only that, but, if you so desired, should
proclaim to all mankind in one and the same day that Alcibiades, son of
Cleinias, was tyrant:--in such a case, I imagine, you would depart full of
joy, as one who had obtained the greatest of goods.
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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 The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: that any one likely to come in has designs on their victuals, and
would tear one to pieces. You will tell me one might throw them down
pieces, but it seems they have been trained to touch nothing except
from the hand of the porter."
"The porter of the Baron de Nucingen, whose garden joins at the top
that of the Hotel San-Real, told me the same thing," replied the
postman.
"Good! my master knows him," said Laurent, to himself. "Do you know,"
he went on, leering at the postman, "I serve a master who is a rare
man, and if he took it into his head to kiss the sole of the foot of
an empress, she would have to give in to him. If he had need of you,
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
