| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic: about the room, noting the pictures and appraising
the furniture in their minds.
The obvious leader of the party, Loren Pierce, a rich
quarryman, was an old man of medium size and mean attire,
with a square, beardless face as hard and impassive
in expression as one of his blocks of limestone.
The irregular, thin-lipped mouth, slightly sunken,
and shut with vice-like firmness, the short snub nose,
and the little eyes squinting from half-closed lids
beneath slightly marked brows, seemed scarcely to attain
to the dignity of features, but evaded attention instead,
The Damnation of Theron Ware |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: got clear of Calistoga: Kelmar, Mrs. Kelmar, a friend of
theirs whom we named Abramina, her little daughter, my wife,
myself, and, stowed away behind us, a cluster of ship's
coffee-kettles. These last were highly ornamental in the
sheen of their bright tin, but I could invent no reason for
their presence. Our carriageful reckoned up, as near as we
could get at it, some three hundred years to the six of us.
Four of the six, besides, were Hebrews. But I never, in all
my life, was conscious of so strong an atmosphere of holiday.
No word was spoken but of pleasure; and even when we drove in
silence, nods and smiles went round the party like
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Wheels of Chance by H. G. Wells: that. Beyond was empty downland perhaps for miles. He decided to
return to the inn and snatch a hasty meal.
At the inn they gave him biscuits and cheese and a misleading
pewter measure of sturdy ale, pleasant under the palate, cool in
the throat, but leaden in the legs, of a hot afternoon. He felt a
man of substance as he emerged in the blinding sunshine, but even
by the foot of the down the sun was insisting again that his
skull was too small for his brains. The hill had gone steeper,
the chalky road blazed like a magnesium light, and his front
wheel began an apparently incurable squeaking. He felt as a man
from Mars would feel if he were suddenly transferred to this
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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 Faraday as a Discoverer by John Tyndall: feel so weary that I long to leave my desk and go to the couch.
'My dear wife and Jane desire their kindest remembrances: I hear
them in the next room:... I forget--but not you, my dear Tyndall,
for I am
'Ever yours,
'M. Faraday.'
This weariness subsided when he relinquished his work, and I have a
cheerful letter from him, written in the autumn of 1865. But
towards the close of that year he had an attack of illness, from
which he never completely rallied. He continued to attend the
Friday Evening Meetings, but the advance of infirmity was apparent
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