| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Middlemarch by George Eliot: "Bless my heart! what's this fellow in black coming along the lane?
He's like one of those men one sees about after the races."
Mr. Bulstrode turned his horse and looked along the lane, but made
no reply. The comer was our slight acquaintance Mr. Raffles,
whose appearance presented no other change than such as was due
to a suit of black and a crape hat-band. He was within three yards
of the horseman now, and they could see the flash of recognition
in his face as he whirled his stick upward, looking all the while
at Mr. Bulstrode, and at last exclaiming:--
"By Jove, Nick, it's you! I couldn't be mistaken, though the
five-and-twenty years have played old Boguy with us both! How are you,
Middlemarch |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Unconscious Comedians by Honore de Balzac: fifty francs at the end of the quarter."
"As Emile Blondet used to say, you shall be my benefactor," replied
Bixiou.
"Twenty per cent!" whispered Gazonal to Bixiou, who replied by a punch
of his elbow in the provincial's oesophagus.
"Bless me!" said Vauvinet opening a drawer in his desk as if to put
away the Ravenouillet notes, "here's an old bill of five hundred
francs stuck in the drawer! I didn't know I was so rich. And here's a
note payable at the end of the month for four hundred and fifty;
Cerizet will take it without much diminution, and there's your sum in
hand. But no nonsense, Bixiou! Hein? to-night, at Carabine's, will you
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Complete Angler by Izaak Walton: He spawns but once a year; and is, by physicians, held very nutritive;
yet, by many, to be hard of digestion. They abound more in the river Po,
and in England, says Rondeletius, than other parts: and have in their
brain a stone, which is, in foreign parts, sold by apothecaries, being
there noted to be very medicinable against the stone in the reins. These
be a part of the commendations which some philosophical brains have
bestowed upon the freshwater Perch: yet they commend the Sea-Perch
which is known by having but one fin on his back, of which they say we
English see but a few, to be a much better fish.
The Perch grows slowly, yet will grow, as I have been credibly
informed, to be almost two feet long; for an honest informer told me,
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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 Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield: and the floor was bare. The furniture was of the shabbiest, the simplest.
The dressing-table, for instance, was a packing-case in a sprigged muslin
petticoat, and the mirror above was very strange; it was as though a little
piece of forked lightning was imprisoned in it. On the table there stood a
jar of sea-pinks, pressed so tightly together they looked more like a
velvet pincushion, and a special shell which Kezia had given her grandma
for a pin-tray, and another even more special which she had thought would
make a very nice place for a watch to curl up in.
"Tell me, grandma," said Kezia.
The old woman sighed, whipped the wool twice round her thumb, and drew the
bone needle through. She was casting on.
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