| 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 Les Miserables by Victor Hugo: in the matter, and it was through no fault of his. Perhaps, even,
he is already dead. Here his fever entered into calculations.
No, he is not dead yet. The letter had evidently been intended
for Cosette to read on the following morning; after the two
discharges that were heard between eleven o'clock and midnight,
nothing more has taken place; the barricade will not be attacked
seriously until daybreak; but that makes no difference, from the
moment when "that man" is concerned in this war, he is lost;
he is caught in the gearing. Jean Valjean felt himself delivered.
So he was about to find himself alone with Cosette once more.
The rivalry would cease; the future was beginning again. He had
Les Miserables |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from On Revenues by Xenophon: building purposes in cases where there could be no doubt as to the
respectability of the applicant, if I am not mistaken, the result of
such a measure will be that a larger number of persons, and of a
better class, will be attracted to Athens as a place of residence.
[9] Or, "offer the fee simple of such property to."
Lastly, if we could bring ourselves to appoint, as a new government
office, a board of guardians of foreign residents like our Guardians
of Orphans,[10] with special privileges assigned to those guardians
who should show on their books the greatest number of resident aliens
--such a measure would tend to improve the goodwill of the class in
question, and in all probability all people without a city of their
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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 Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: woman,--there was one of a very singular nature; which, when he had done
arguing the matter with her as a Christian, and came to argue it over again
with her as a philosopher, he had put his whole strength to, depending
indeed upon it as his sheet-anchor.--It failed him, tho' from no defect in
the argument itself; but that, do what he could, he was not able for his
soul to make her comprehend the drift of it.--Cursed luck!--said he to
himself, one afternoon, as he walked out of the room, after he had been
stating it for an hour and a half to her, to no manner of purpose;--cursed
luck! said he, biting his lip as he shut the door,--for a man to be master
of one of the finest chains of reasoning in nature,--and have a wife at the
same time with such a head-piece, that he cannot hang up a single inference
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