| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte: quite approve of the deed. I told him I thought he might better
spare all his rabbits than she her cat, for which audacious
assertion he treated me to some rather ungentlemanly language; and
I fear I retorted a trifle too warmly.'
'Oh, lawful sir! I hope you didn't fall out wi' th' maister for
sake o' my cat! he cannot bide answering again - can th' maister.'
'Oh! it's no matter, Nancy: I don't care about it, really; I said
nothing VERY uncivil; and I suppose Mr. Murray is accustomed to use
rather strong language when he's heated.'
'Ay, sir: it's a pity.'
'And now, I really must go. I have to visit a place a mile beyond
Agnes Grey |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: Deserving Object.
INSURRECTION, n. An unsuccessful revolution. Disaffection's failure
to substitute misrule for bad government.
INTENTION, n. The mind's sense of the prevalence of one set of
influences over another set; an effect whose cause is the imminence,
immediate or remote, of the performance of an involuntary act.
INTERPRETER, n. One who enables two persons of different languages to
understand each other by repeating to each what it would have been to
the interpreter's advantage for the other to have said.
INTERREGNUM, n. The period during which a monarchical country is
governed by a warm spot on the cushion of the throne. The experiment
The Devil's Dictionary |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Reminiscences of Tolstoy by Leo Tolstoy: middle of the day my mother collected us all at a quite unusual
hour in the drawing-room, where Iván Sergéyevitch
read us his story of "The Dog."
I can remember his tall, stalwart figure, his gray, silky,
yellowish hair, his soft tread, rather waddling walk, and his
piping voice, quite out of keeping with his majestic exterior. He
had a chuckling kind of laugh, like a child's, and when he laughed
his voice was more piping than ever.
In the evening, after dinner, we all gathered in the
zala. At that time Uncle Seryózha, Prince
Leoníd Dmítryevitch Urúsof, Vice-Governor of
|
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 Massimilla Doni by Honore de Balzac: idea!"
There are some strongly blended natures on which extremes of joy or of
grief have a soporific effect. Now on a youth so compounded that he
could idealize his mistress to the point of ceasing to think of her as
a woman, this sudden incursion of wealth had the effect of a dose of
opium. When the Prince had drunk the whole of the bottle of port,
eaten half a fish and some portion of a French pate, he felt an
irresistible longing for bed. Perhaps he was suffering from a double
intoxication. So he pulled off the counterpane, opened the bed,
undressed in a pretty dressing-room, and lay down to meditate on
destiny.
|
