| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Pocket Diary Found in the Snow by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: "No, but I have an old mother to support."
"Leave your address with the commissioner. He may be able to find
work for you; we can always use good men here. But now drink your
tea." Amster drank the glass in one gulp. "Well, now we have lost
the trail in both directions," said Muller calmly. "But we will
find it again. You can help, as you are free now anyway. If you
have the talent for that sort of thing, you may find permanent work
here."
A gesture and a look from the workingman showed the detective that
the former did not think very highly of such occupation. Muller
laid his hand on the other's shoulder and said gravely: "You wouldn't
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad: gust of wind whose approach Gambril's ear had
detected from afar and which filled the sails on the
main in a series of muffled reports mingled with the
low plaint of the spars. I was just in time to seize
the wheel while Frenchy who had followed me
caught up the collapsing Gambril. He hauled him
out of the way, admonished him to lie still where he
was, and then stepped up to relieve me, asking
calmly:
"How am I to steer her, sir?"
"Dead before it for the present. I'll get you a
The Shadow Line |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Sophist by Plato: respecting the nature of being, having nothing of their own to offer.
THEAETETUS: What is the notion? Tell me, and we shall soon see.
STRANGER: My notion would be, that anything which possesses any sort of
power to affect another, or to be affected by another, if only for a single
moment, however trifling the cause and however slight the effect, has real
existence; and I hold that the definition of being is simply power.
THEAETETUS: They accept your suggestion, having nothing better of their
own to offer.
STRANGER: Very good; perhaps we, as well as they, may one day change our
minds; but, for the present, this may be regarded as the understanding
which is established with them.
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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 Malbone: An Oldport Romance by Thomas Wentworth Higginson: passionate nature,--to dream of one woman in another's arms.
She, too, watched him with an ever-increasing instinct of
danger, studied with a chilly terror the workings of his face,
weighed and reweighed his words in absence, agonized herself
with new and ever new suspicions; and then, when these had
accumulated beyond endurance, seized them convulsively and
threw them all away. Then, coming back to him with a great
overwhelming ardor of affection, she poured upon him more and
more in proportion as he gave her less.
Sometimes in these moments of renewed affection he half gave
words to his remorse, accused himself before her of unnamed
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