| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Faith of Men by Jack London: on his mittens and went out the door.
Though eight o'clock, it was still dark outside, and the cabin was
lighted by a tallow candle thrust into an empty whisky bottle. It
stood on the pine-board table in the middle of a disarray of dirty
tin dishes. Tallow from innumerable candles had dripped down the
long neck of the bottle and hardened into a miniature glacier. The
small room, which composed the entire cabin, was as badly littered
as the table; while at one end, against the wall, were two bunks,
one above the other, with the blankets turned down just as the two
men had crawled out in the morning.
Lawrence Pentfield and Corry Hutchinson were millionaires, 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 Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: For the first week or two after their arrival, the foresters
and other permanent officials keep guard at night over the houses
they are put into. I suppose they find it sleepy work;
for certain it is that spring after spring the same thing happens,
fifty of them getting away in spite of all our precautions,
and we are left with our mouths open and much out of pocket.
This spring, by some mistake, they arrived without their bundles,
which had gone astray on the road, and, as they travel in their
best clothes, they refused utterly to work until their luggage came.
Nearly a week was lost waiting, to the despair of all in authority.
Nor will any persuasions induce them to do anything on Saints'
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: great page; it is startlingly original, and as true as death and
judgment. Tibbie Birse in the Burial is great, but I think it was
a journalist that got in the word 'official.' The same character
plainly had a word to say to Thomas Haggard. Thomas affects me as
a lie - I beg your pardon; doubtless he was somebody you knew, that
leads people so far astray. The actual is not the true.
I am proud to think you are a Scotchman - though to be sure I know
nothing of that country, being only an English tourist, quo' Gavin
Ogilvy. I commend the hard case of Mr. Gavin Ogilvy to J. M.
Barrie, whose work is to me a source of living pleasure and
heartfelt national pride. There are two of us now that the Shirra
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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 Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy: merchant's awkward defence (evidently based on his physical
admiration for her, which he did not even try to hide) and the
foreman's insistence, and especially everybody's weariness, were
all tending to her condemnation, he longed to state his
objections, yet dared not, lest his relations with Maslova should
be discovered. He felt he could not allow things to go on without
stating his objection; and, blushing and growing pale again, was
about to speak when Peter Gerasimovitch, irritated by the
authoritative manner of the foreman, began to raise his
objections and said the very things Nekhludoff was about to say.
"Allow me one moment," he said. "You seem to think that her
Resurrection |
