| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Glaucus/The Wonders of the Shore by Charles Kingsley: bottom of an ocean hundreds of thousands of years ago, you have at
least a few thoughts over which to ruminate, which will make you at
once too busy to grumble, and ashamed to grumble.
Yet, after all, I hardly think the lake was formed in this way, and
suspect that it may have been dry for ages after it emerged from
the primeval waves, and Snowdonia was a palm-fringed island in a
tropic sea. Let us look the place over more fully.
You see the lake is nearly circular; on the side where we stand the
pebbly beach is not six feet above the water, and slopes away
steeply into the valley behind us, while before us it shelves
gradually into the lake; forty yards out, as you know, there is not
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: ing himself. He was almost speechless; his quick
breathing under the blankets pulled up to his chin,
his glittering, restless black eyes reminded me of a
wild bird caught in a snare. While I was examining
him, old Swaffer stood silently by the door, passing
the tips of his fingers along his shaven upper lip.
I gave some directions, promised to send a bottle of
medicine, and naturally made some inquiries.
"'Smith caught him in the stackyard at New
Barns,' said the old chap in his deliberate, unmoved
manner, and as if the other had been indeed a sort
Amy Foster |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Fables by Robert Louis Stevenson: other, all the touchstones lost their hue and fire, and withered
like stars at morning; but in the light of the pebble, their beauty
remained, only the pebble was the most bright. And the elder son
smote upon his brow. "How if this be the truth?" he cried, "that
all are a little true?" And he took the pebble, and turned its
light upon the heavens, and they deepened about him like the pit;
and he turned it on the hills, and the hills were cold and rugged,
but life ran in their sides so that his own life bounded; and he
turned it on the dust, and he beheld the dust with joy and terror;
and he turned it on himself, and kneeled down and prayed.
"Now, thanks be to God," said the elder son, "I have found the
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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 New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells: circumstanced, and finding an interest and occupation in politics.
And then came a glimpse of thought, of imagination, like the sight
of a soaring eagle through a staircase skylight. Oh, beyond
question he was great! No other contemporary politician had his
quality. In no man have I perceived so sympathetically the great
contrast between warm, personal things and the white dream of
statecraft. Except that he had it seemed no hot passions, but only
interests and fine affections and indolences, he paralleled the
conflict of my life. He saw and thought widely and deeply; but at
times it seemed to me his greatness stood over and behind the
reality of his life, like some splendid servant, thinking his own
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