| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Witch, et. al by Anton Chekhov: certainty. The gentry don't know of them, but the old peasants,
particularly the soldiers, know all about them. Here, somewhere
on that ridge [the overseer pointed with his whip] robbers one
time attacked a caravan of gold; the gold was being taken from
Petersburg to the Emperor Peter who was building a fleet at the
time at Voronezh. The robbers killed the men with the caravan and
buried the gold, but did not find it again afterwards. Another
treasure was buried by our Cossacks of the Don. In the year '12
they carried off lots of plunder of all sorts from the French,
goods and gold and silver. When they were going homewards they
heard on the way that the government wanted to take away all the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: glowing benignity might not be absolutely unpleasant to the
feminine beholder, with the width of a street, or even an
ordinary-sized room, interposed between, yet it became quite
too intense, when this dark, full-fed physiognomy (so roughly
bearded, too, that no razor could ever make it smooth) sought to
bring itself into actual contact with the object of its regards.
The man, the sex, somehow or other, was entirely too prominent in
the Judge's demonstrations of that sort. Phoebe's eyes sank, and,
without knowing why, she felt herself blushing deeply under his
look. Yet she had been kissed before, and without any particular
squeamishness, by perhaps half a dozen different cousins, younger
House of Seven Gables |
| 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: coat, white shirt, kilt (a little longer than the Scotch) of a blue
stuff with big white or yellow flowers, legs and feet bare; in the
back seat me and my wife, who is a friend of yours; under our feet,
plenty of lunch and things: among us a great deal of fun in broken
Tahitian, one of the natives, the sub-chief of the village, being a
great ally of mine. Indeed we have exchanged names; so that he is
now called Rui, the nearest they can come to Louis, for they have
no L and no S in their language. Rui is six feet three in his
stockings, and a magnificent man. We all have straw hats, for the
sun is strong. We drive between the sea, which makes a great
noise, and the mountains; the road is cut through a forest mostly
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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 Mayflower Compact: Acts, Constitutions, and Offices, from time to time,
as shall be thought most meete and convenient for the
Generall Good of the Colonie; unto which we promise
all due Submission and Obedience.
In Witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names
at Cape Cod the eleventh of November, in the Raigne of our
Sovereigne Lord, King James of England, France, and Ireland,
the eighteenth, and of Scotland, the fiftie-fourth,
Anno. Domini, 1620.
Mr. John Carver Mr. Stephen Hopkins
Mr. William Bradford Digery Priest
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