| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Madame Firmiani by Honore de Balzac: daughters are charming girls, but they have been cruelly taught that
the world thinks little of beauty without money. What a scene it was!
I entered their house the accomplice in a crime; I left it an honest
man, who had purged his father's memory. Uncle, I don't judge him;
there is such excitement, such passion in a lawsuit that even an
honorable man may be led astray by them. Lawyers can make the most
unjust claims legal; laws have convenient syllogisms to quiet
consciences. My visit was a drama. To BE Providence itself; actually
to fulfil that futile wish, 'If heaven were to send us twenty thousand
francs a year,'--that silly wish we all make, laughing; to bring
opulence to a family sitting by the light of one miserable lamp over a
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: of this head-peddling purple rascal altogether passed my
comprehension. Ignorance is the parent of fear, and being completely
nonplussed and confounded about the stranger, I confess I was now as
much afraid of him as if it was the devil himself who had thus broken
into my room at the dead of night. In fact, I was so afraid of him
that I was not game enough just then to address him, and demand a
satisfactory answer concerning what seemed inexplicable in him.
Meanwhile, he continued the business of undressing, and at last
showed his chest and arms. As I live, these covered parts of him
were checkered with the same squares as his face; his back, too, was
all over the same dark squares; he seemed to have been in a Thirty
Moby Dick |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Malbone: An Oldport Romance by Thomas Wentworth Higginson: silence, in which all joined him, while the wind howled and
whistled outside, and the barred windows shook.
Weary and restless with vain waiting, they looked from the
doorway at the weather. The door went back with a slam, and
the gust swooped down on them with that special blast that
always seems to linger just outside on such nights, ready for
the first head that shows itself. They closed the door upon
the flickering fire and the uncouth shadows within, and went
forth into the night. At first the solid blackness seemed to
lay a weight on their foreheads. There was absolutely nothing
to be seen but the two lights of the light-ship, glaring from
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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 A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift: making them beneficial to the publick.
by Dr. Jonathan Swift. 1729
It is a melancholy object to those, who walk through this great
town, or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the
roads and cabbin-doors crowded with beggars of the female sex,
followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags, and
importuning every passenger for an alms. These mothers instead of
being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to
employ all their time in stroling to beg sustenance for their
helpless infants who, as they grow up, either turn thieves for
want of work, or leave their dear native country, to fight for
A Modest Proposal |
