| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tom Sawyer, Detective by Mark Twain: "Yes. I seen them plain."
"Swear it?"
"Yes, I swear it."
"So do I. Now do you know what that means?"
"No. What does it mean?"
"Means that them thieves DIDN'T GET THE DI'MONDS."
"Jimminy! What makes you think that?"
"I don't only think it, I know it. Didn't the breeches
and goggles and whiskers and hand-bag and every blessed
thing turn to ghost-stuff? Everything it had on turned,
didn't it? It shows that the reason its boots turned
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens: tears.
'He is a likely lad,' said the blind man, thoughtfully, 'for many
purposes, and not ill-disposed to try his fortune in a little
change and bustle, if I may judge from what I heard of his talk
with you to-night.--Come. In a word, my friend has pressing
necessity for twenty pounds. You, who can give up an annuity, can
get that sum for him. It's a pity you should be troubled. You
seem very comfortable here, and it's worth that much to remain so.
Twenty pounds, widow, is a moderate demand. You know where to
apply for it; a post will bring it you.--Twenty pounds!'
She was about to answer him again, but again he stopped her.
Barnaby Rudge |
| 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: courtiers who, being off duty, no longer had the right of entrance to
the royal apartments, and stood in two hedges on either side. Gondi,
who watched them while the queen-mother talked with the Lorraine
princes, whispered in her ear, in good Tuscan, two words which
afterwards became proverbs,--words which are the keynote to one aspect
of her regal character: "Odiate e aspettate"--"Hate and wait."
Pardaillan, who had gone to order the officer of the guard at the gate
of the chateau to let the clerk of the queen's furrier enter, found
Christophe open-mouthed before the portal, staring at the facade built
by the good king Louis XII., on which there was at that time a much
greater number of grotesque carvings than we see there to-day,--
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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 Edition of The Ambassadors by Henry James: flights, counting the entresol, at midnight and without a lift, for
Chad's life. The young man, hearing him by this time, and with
Baptiste sent to rest, was already at the door; so that Strether
had before him in full visibility the cause in which he was labouring
and even, with the troisieme fairly gained, panting a little.
Chad offered him, as always, a welcome in which the cordial and the
formal--so far as the formal was the respectful--handsomely met;
and after he had expressed a hope that he would let him put him up
for the night Strether was in full possession of the key, as it
might have been called, to what had lately happened. If he had
just thought of himself as old Chad was at sight of him thinking of
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