| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: mind to read, was put up leaning against the wall: I first
mounted to the upper step of the ladder, and turning my face
towards the book, began at the top of the page, and so walking to
the right and left about eight or ten paces, according to the
length of the lines, till I had gotten a little below the level
of mine eyes, and then descending gradually till I came to the
bottom: after which I mounted again, and began the other page in
the same manner, and so turned over the leaf, which I could
easily do with both my hands, for it was as thick and stiff as a
pasteboard, and in the largest folios not above eighteen or
twenty feet long.
Gulliver's Travels |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: "You have hit upon the exact word; I was fond of him, yes, just
as I was fond of my grandmother, and the house that I was born
in, and my old nurse. Oh, I was fond of him, and we were counted
a very happy couple. But I have sometimes thought that a woman's
nature is like a great house full of rooms: there is the hall,
through which everyone passes in going in and out; the drawing-
room, where one receives formal visits; the sitting-room, where
the members of the family come and go as they list; but beyond
that, far beyond, are other rooms, the handles of whose doors
perhaps are never turned; no one knows the way to them, no one
knows whither they lead; and in the innermost room, the holy of
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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 Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: some day free and prosperous."
The face of the young enthusiast, that of Chaudieu, that of the
sailor, that of the stranger seated in the bow, lighted by the last
gleams of the twilight, formed a picture which ought the more to be
described because the description contains in itself the whole history
of the times--if it is, indeed, true that to certain men it is given
to sum up in their own persons the spirit of their age.
The religious reform undertaken by Luther in Germany, John Knox in
Scotland, Calvin in France, took hold especially of those minds in the
lower classes into which thought had penetrated. The great lords
sustained the movement only to serve interests that were foreign to
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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 Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: he had taken her, in full dress, to a proscenium box on the first
tier.
"On my return, Jenny, I shall refurnish your room in superior style.
That big Matilda, who pesters you with comparisons and her real India
shawls imported by the suite of the Russian ambassador, and her silver
plate and her Russian prince,--who to my mind is nothing but a humbug,
--won't have a word to say THEN. I consecrate to the adornment of your
room all the 'Children' I shall get in the provinces."
"Well, that's a pretty thing to say!" cried the florist. "Monster of a
man! Do you dare to talk to me of your children? Do you suppose I am
going to stand that sort of thing?"
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