| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Second Home by Honore de Balzac: commonly closed the daily procession, for the old woman put on her
spectacles and took up her work with a sigh, glancing at her daughter
with so strange a look that Lavater himself would have found it
difficult to interpret. Admiration, gratitude, a sort of hope for
better days, were mingled with pride at having such a pretty daughter.
At about four in the afternoon the old lady pushed her foot against
Caroline's, and the girl looked up quickly enough to see the new
actor, whose regular advent would thenceforth lend variety to the
scene. He was tall and thin, and wore black, a man of about forty,
with a certain solemnity of demeanor; as his piercing hazel eye met
the old woman's dull gaze, he made her quake, for she felt as though
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Criminal Sociology by Enrico Ferri: moral sensibility, and then the warning is a mere useless
ceremony, without effect either on the criminal or on the public.
So true is this that judicial warning (a different thing from
police warning, which is another so-called preventive measure,
both ineffectual and injurious) is rarely applied by magistrates.
Compulsory work without imprisonment may be admitted, not as a
main punishment, but as a mode of enforcing strict reparation of
damage, which I still believe to be the only suitable measure for
occasional offenders, when the offence is slight.
The same must be said for qualified banishment (temporary removal
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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 Case of The Lamp That Went Out by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: remembered that there was a handsome old house in this direction,
a house with a mansard roof and wide-reaching wings. He did not
now know to whom this handsome old house belonged, a house that
must have been built in the time of Maria Theresa, ... but he was
sure of one thing, and that was that he would soon find out to
whom it belonged. At present it was the garden which interested
him, and he was anxious to see where it ended. A few moments'
further inspection showed him what he wanted to know. The garden
extended to the beginning of the park-like grounds which surrounded
the old house with the mansard roof. A tall iron railing separated
the garden from the park, but this railing did not extend down as
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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 An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce: swirling water of the stream racing madly beneath his feet.
A piece of dancing driftwood caught his attention and his
eyes followed it down the current. How slowly it appeared
to move! What a sluggish stream!
He closed his eyes in order to fix his last thoughts upon his
wife and children. The water, touched to gold by the early
sun, the brooding mists under the banks at some distance down
the stream, the fort, the soldiers, the piece of drift -- all
had distracted him. And now he became conscious of a new
disturbance. Striking through the thought of his dear
ones was sound which he could neither ignore nor understand,
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge |
