| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: controlling energy inspires Man's mind, guides his actions and adorns
his life.
Folly! although Erasmus praised thee once
In a thick volume, and all authors known,
If not thy glory yet thy power have shown,
Deign to take homage from thy son who hunts
Through all thy maze his brothers, fool and dunce,
To mend their lives and to sustain his own,
However feebly be his arrows thrown,
Howe'er each hide the flying weapons blunts.
All-Father Folly! be it mine to raise,
The Devil's Dictionary |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Almayer's Folly by Joseph Conrad: and when he looked at the moon again it had risen a hand's
breadth above the trees. Would she come? He forced himself to
lay still, overcoming the impulse to rise and rush round the
clearing again. He turned this way and that; at last, quivering
with the effort, he lay on his back, and saw her face among the
stars looking down on him.
The croaking of frogs suddenly ceased. With the watchfulness of
a hunted man Dain sat up, listening anxiously, and heard several
splashes in the water as the frogs took rapid headers into the
creek. He knew that they had been alarmed by something, and
stood up suspicious and attentive. A slight grating noise, then
Almayer's Folly |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells: weekly, on a theory which she took very gravely, that they were
exceptionally friends. He would ask her to come to dinner with
him in some little Italian or semi-Bohemian restaurant in the
district toward Soho, or in one of the more stylish and
magnificent establishments about Piccadilly Circus, and for the
most part she did not care to refuse. Nor, indeed, did she want
to refuse. These dinners, from their lavish display of ambiguous
hors d'oeuvre to their skimpy ices in dishes of frilled paper,
with their Chianti flasks and Parmesan dishes and their polyglot
waiters and polyglot clientele, were very funny and bright; and
she really liked Ramage, and valued his help and advice. It was
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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 Witch, et. al by Anton Chekhov: "God will provide!"
He used to drive off on business; his wife, in a dark dress and a
black apron, tidied the rooms or helped in the kitchen. Aksinya
attended to the shop, and from the yard could be heard the clink
of bottles and of money, her laughter and loud talk, and the
anger of customers whom she had offended; and at the same time it
could be seen that the secret sale of vodka was already going on
in the shop. The deaf man sat in the shop, too, or walked about
the street bare-headed, with his hands in his pockets looking
absent-mindedly now at the huts, now at the sky overhead. Six
times a day they had tea; four times a day they sat down to
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