| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy: contemplation now halted for the payment of toll. About
twenty steps still remained between him and the gate,
when he heard a dispute. lt was a difference con-
cerning twopence between the persons with the waggon
and the man at the toll-bar.
"Mis'ess's niece is upon the top of the things, and
she says that's enough that I've offered ye, you great
miser, and she won't pay any more." These were the
waggoner's words.
"Very well; then mis'ess's niece can't pass." said the
turnpike-keeper, closing the gate.
Far From the Madding Crowd |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: free himself at the expense of Clifford, his rival, for whose
character he had at once a contempt and a repugnance. It is not
probable, be it said, that he acted with any set purpose of
involving Clifford in a charge of murder. Knowing that his uncle
did not die by violence, it may not have occurred to him, in the
hurry of the crisis, that such an inference might be drawn. But,
when the affair took this darker aspect, Jaffrey's previous steps
had already pledged him to those which remained. So craftily had
he arranged the circumstances, that, at Clifford's trial, his cousin
hardly found it necessary to swear to anything false, but only to
withhold the one decisive explanation, by refraining to state what
House of Seven Gables |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad: what he had to say. He had survived his strength, his
usefulness, his very wisdom. He wore long, green, worsted
stockings pulled up above the knee over his trousers, a sort of
woollen nightcap on his hairless cranium, and wooden clogs on his
feet. Without his hooded cloak he looked like a peasant. Half a
dozen hands would be extended to help him on board, but afterward
he was left pretty much to his own thoughts. Of course he never
did any work, except, perhaps, to cast off some rope when hailed,
"He, l'Ancien! let go the halyards there, at your hand"--or some
such request of an easy kind.
No one took notice in any way of the chuckling within the shadow
A Personal Record |
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 Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac: means of Jews, who, shrewd calculators, served him well in order to
gain his all-powerful protection.
Some time after this affair, the king himself procured for his old
"torconnier" a young orphan in whom he took an interest. Louis XI.
called Maitre Cornelius familiarly by that obsolete term, which, under
the reign of Saint-Louis, meant a usurer, a collector of imposts, a
man who pressed others by violent means. The epithet, "tortionnaire,"
which remains to this day in our legal phraseology, explains the old
word torconnier, which we often find spelt "tortionneur." The poor
young orphan devoted himself carefully to the affairs of the old
Fleming, pleased him much, and was soon high in his good graces.
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