| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne:
Yet there were intervals when the whole scene, in which she was
the most conspicuous object, seemed to vanish from her eyes, or,
at least, glimmered indistinctly before them, like a mass of
imperfectly shaped and spectral images. Her mind, and especially
her memory, was preternaturally active, and kept bringing up
other scenes than this roughly hewn street of a little town, on
the edge of the western wilderness: other faces than were louring
upon her from beneath the brims of those steeple-crowned hats.
Reminiscences, the most trifling and immaterial, passages of
infancy and school-days, sports, childish quarrels, and the
The Scarlet Letter |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lucile by Owen Meredith: In which he revea'd it himself, did I,--say!--
By a word, or a look, such a secret betray?
No! no! do me justice. I never have spoken
Of this poor heart of mine, till all ties he had broken
Which bound YOUR heart to him. And now--now, that his love
For another hath left your own heart free to rove,
What is it,--even now,--that I kneel to implore you?
Only this, Lady Alfred! . . . to let me adore you
Unblamed: to have confidence in me: to spend
On me not one thought, save to think me your friend.
Let me speak to you,--ah, let me speak to you still!
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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 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: fervor into a psalm tune. Just then the shadowy object of alarm
put itself in motion, and with a scramble and a bound stood at
once in the middle of the road. Though the night was dark and
dismal, yet the form of the unknown might now in some degree be
ascertained. He appeared to be a horseman of large dimensions,
and mounted on a black horse of powerful frame. He made no offer
of molestation or sociability, but kept aloof on one side of the
road, jogging along on the blind side of old Gunpowder, who had
now got over his fright and waywardness.
Ichabod, who had no relish for this strange midnight
companion, and bethought himself of the adventure of Brom Bones
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow |
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 Market-Place by Harold Frederic: amassed these fortunes by strangling in their cradles
weak enterprises, and by undermining and toppling
over other enterprises which would not have been weak
if they had been given a legitimate chance to live.
Their system was legal enough, in the eyes alike of the law
and of the Stock Exchange rules. They had an undoubted
right to mark out their prey and pursue it, and bring
it down, and feed to the bone upon it. But the exercise
of this right did not make them beloved by the begetters
and sponsors of their victims. When word first went round,
on the last day of February, that a lamb had unexpectedly
The Market-Place |
