| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Beauty and The Beast by Bayard Taylor: the last feeble stand made by the pernicious juices left from the
meat he had formerly eaten and the coffee he had drunk. His theory
was, that through a body so purged and purified none but true and
natural impulses could find access to the soul. Such, indeed, was
the theory we all held. A Return to Nature was the near
Millennium, the dawn of which we already beheld in the sky. To be
sure there was a difference in our individual views as to how this
should be achieved, but we were all agreed as to what the result
should be.
"I can laugh over those days now, Ned; but they were really happy
while they lasted. We were the salt of the earth; we were lifted
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe: more present to ourselves in sudden surprises of every sort.
Her application to a sober life and industrious management at
last in Virginia, with her transported spouse, is a story fruitful
of instruction to all the unfortunate creatures who are obliged
to seek their re-establishment abroad, whether by the misery
of transportation or other disaster; letting them know that
diligence and application have their due encouragement, even
in the remotest parts of the world, and that no case can be so
low, so despicable, or so empty of prospect, but that an
unwearied industry will go a great way to deliver us from it,
will in time raise the meanest creature to appear again the
Moll Flanders |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Altar of the Dead by Henry James: the vision of heaven in the mind of a child. He wandered in the
fields of light; he passed, among the tall tapers, from tier to
tier, from fire to fire, from name to name, from the white
intensity of one clear emblem, of one saved soul, to another. It
was in the quiet sense of having saved his souls that his deep
strange instinct rejoiced. This was no dim theological rescue, no
boon of a contingent world; they were saved better than faith or
works could save them, saved for the warm world they had shrunk
from dying to, for actuality, for continuity, for the certainty of
human remembrance.
By this time he had survived all his friends; the last straight
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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 Of The Nature of Things by Lucretius: No seeing ere the lights of eyes were born,
No speaking ere the tongue created was;
But origin of tongue came long before
Discourse of words, and ears created were
Much earlier than any sound was heard;
And all the members, so meseems, were there
Before they got their use: and therefore, they
Could not be gendered for the sake of use.
But contrariwise, contending in the fight
With hand to hand, and rending of the joints,
And fouling of the limbs with gore, was there,
Of The Nature of Things |
