| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Edition of The Ambassadors by Henry James: the theatre, been face to face over their question; but they had
never been so alone together as they were actually alone--their
talk hadn't yet been so supremely for themselves. And if many
things moreover passed before them, none passed more distinctly for
Strether than that striking truth about Chad of which he had been
so often moved to take note: the truth that everything came
happily back with him to his knowing how to live. It had been
seated in his pleased smile--a smile that pleased exactly in the
right degree--as his visitor turned round, on the balcony, to greet
his advent; his visitor in fact felt on the spot that there was
nothing their meeting would so much do as bear witness to that
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz by L. Frank Baum: "Of course," he answered. "Train in?"
"I couldn't be here if it wasn't," she said.
He laughed at that, and his laugh was merry and frank. Jumping out of
the buggy he put Dorothy's suit-case under the seat and her bird-cage
on the floor in front.
"Canary-birds?" he asked.
"Oh no; it's just Eureka, my kitten. I thought that was the best way
to carry her."
The boy nodded.
"Eureka's a funny name for a cat," he remarked.
"I named my kitten that because I found it," she explained. "Uncle
Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Lair of the White Worm by Bram Stoker: an unusually dry one. Also the strong east wind was helping forward
enormous flocks of birds, most of them pigeons with white cowls.
Not only were their wings whirring, but their cooing was plainly
audible. From such a multitude of birds the mass of sound,
individually small, assumed the volume of a storm. Surprised at the
influx of birds, to which they had been strangers so long, they all
looked towards Castra Regis, from whose high tower the great kite
had been flying as usual. But even as they looked, the cord broke,
and the great kite fell headlong in a series of sweeping dives. Its
own weight, and the aerial force opposed to it, which caused it to
rise, combined with the strong easterly breeze, had been too much
Lair of the White Worm |
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 Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson: her. "Hey! what's yon?" For the grey dress was cut with short sleeves
and skirts, and displayed her trim strong legs clad in pink stockings of
the same shade as the kerchief she wore round her shoulders, and that
shimmered as she went. This was not her way in undress; he knew her
ways and the ways of the whole sex in the country-side, no one better;
when they did not go barefoot, they wore stout "rig and furrow" woollen
hose of an invisible blue mostly, when they were not black outright; and
Dandie, at sight of this daintiness, put two and two together. It was a
silk handkerchief, then they would be silken hose; they matched - then
the whole outfit was a present of Clem's, a costly present, and not
something to be worn through bog and briar, or on a late afternoon of
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