| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson: The road lay over moorish hills, where was no sound but the crying
of moor-fowl in the wet heather and the pouring of the swollen
burns. Sometimes I would doze off in slumber, when I would find
myself plunged at once in some foul and ominous nightmare, from the
which I would awake strangling. Sometimes, if the way was steep
and the wheels turning slowly, I would overhear the voices from
within, talking in that tropical tongue which was to me as
inarticulate as the piping of the fowls. Sometimes, at a longer
ascent, the Master would set foot to ground and walk by my side,
mostly without speech. And all the time, sleeping or waking, I
beheld the same black perspective of approaching ruin; and the same
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Moon-Face and Other Stories by Jack London: orchestra, her lips moving on without a sound, and then the audience realized
that it had been sold, and broke out afresh, this time with genuine applause
in acknowledgment of her victory. She chose this as the happy moment for her
exit, and with a bow and a backward retreat, she was off the stage in Letty's
arms.
The worst was past, and for the rest of the evening she moved about among the
amateurs and professionals, talking, listening, observing, finding out what it
meant and taking mental notes of it all. Charley Welsh constituted himself her
preceptor and guardian angel, and so well did he perform the self-allotted
task that when it was all over she felt fully prepared to write her article.
But the proposition had been to do two turns, and her native pluck forced her
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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 Some Reminiscences by Joseph Conrad: silence.
"Thank you for this warning. I assure you that even if she were
dying she would be carried out to the carriage."
"Yes--indeed--and what difference would it make--travel to Kiev
or back to her husband. For she would have to go--death or no
death. And mind, Mr. B., I will be here on the day, not that I
doubt your promise, but because I must. I have got to. Duty.
All the same my trade is not fit for a dog since some of you
Poles will persist in rebelling, and all of you have got to
suffer for it."
This is the reason why he was there in an open three-horse trap
Some Reminiscences |
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 Lesson of the Master by Henry James: incentives."
"Ah well then, n'en parlons plus!" his companion handsomely smiled.
"YOU are an incentive, I maintain," the young man went on. "You
don't affect me in the way you'd apparently like to. Your great
success is what I see - the pomp of Ennismore Gardens!"
"Success?" - St. George's eyes had a cold fine light. "Do you call
it success to be spoken of as you'd speak of me if you were sitting
here with another artist - a young man intelligent and sincere like
yourself? Do you call it success to make you blush - as you would
blush! - if some foreign critic (some fellow, of course I mean, who
should know what he was talking about and should have shown you he
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