| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: Furthermore, he is rendered obstinate by a sulkiness occasionally
incident to his temper, and brought on at present by the
inadequate sensation which he conceives to have been produced in
the bosom of Mrs. Wakefield. He will not go back until she be
frightened half to death. Well; twice or thrice has she passed
before his sight, each time with a heavier step, a paler cheek,
and more anxious brow; and in the third week of his
non-appearance he detects a portent of evil entering the house,
in the guise of an apothecary. Next day the knocker is muffled.
Towards nightfall comes the chariot of a physician, and deposits
its big-wigged and solemn burden at Wakefield's door, whence,
Twice Told Tales |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Paradise Lost by John Milton: Their state-affairs: so thick the airy crowd
Swarmed and were straitened; till, the signal given,
Behold a wonder! They but now who seemed
In bigness to surpass Earth's giant sons,
Now less than smallest dwarfs, in narrow room
Throng numberless--like that pygmean race
Beyond the Indian mount; or faery elves,
Whose midnight revels, by a forest-side
Or fountain, some belated peasant sees,
Or dreams he sees, while overhead the Moon
Sits arbitress, and nearer to the Earth
Paradise Lost |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft: offer of forty pounds a year, and to quit a workhouse, was not to
be despised, though the condition of shutting my eyes and hardening
my heart was annexed to it.
"I agreed to accompany him; and four years have I been attendant
on many wretches, and"--she lowered her voice,--"the witness of
many enormities. In solitude my mind seemed to recover its force,
and many of the sentiments which I imbibed in the only tolerable
period of my life, returned with their full force. Still what
should induce me to be the champion for suffering humanity?--Who
ever risked any thing for me?--Who ever acknowledged me to be a
fellow-creature?"--
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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 Hated Son by Honore de Balzac: of the valley, where the eye could rove at will. Following the
instincts of her thought, Gabrielle could either enter the solitude of
a narrow space, seeing naught but the thick green and the blue of the
sky above the tree-tops, or she could hover above a glorious prospect,
letting her eyes follow those many-shaded green lines, from the
brilliant colors of the foreground to the pure tones of the horizon on
which they lost themselves, sometimes in the blue ocean of the
atmosphere, sometimes in the cumuli that floated above it.
Watched over by her grandmother and served by her former nurse,
Gabrielle Beauvouloir never left this modest home except for the
parish church, the steeple of which could be seen at the summit of the
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