| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from O Pioneers! by Willa Cather: to his farm-hand who was reading the other half
of the paper.
"By God! if I have that young feller in de
hayfield once, I show him someting. Listen
here what he do wit his money." And Frank
began the catalogue of the young man's reputed
extravagances.
Marie sighed. She thought it hard that the
Goulds, for whom she had nothing but good
O Pioneers! |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Fantastic Fables by Ambrose Bierce: The Humble Peasant
The Various Delegation
The No Case
A Harmless Visitor
The Judge and the Rash Act
The Prerogative of Might
An Inflated Ambition
Rejected Services
The Power of the Scalawag
At Large - One Temper
The Seeker and the Sought
Fantastic Fables |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Vailima Letters by Robert Louis Stevenson: on Saturday, the CURACOA came in - same commission, with all
our old friends; and on Sunday, as already mentioned, Austin
and I went down to service and had lunch afterwards in the
wardroom. The officers were awfully nice to Austin; they are
the most amiable ship in the world; and after lunch we had a
paper handed round on which we were to guess, and sign our
guess, of the number of leaves on the pine-apple; I never saw
this game before, but it seems it is much practised in the
Queen's Navee. When all have betted, one of the party begins
to strip the pine-apple head, and the person whose guess is
furthest out has to pay for the sherry. My equanimity 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 Glaucus/The Wonders of the Shore by Charles Kingsley: tepid, all is over with your pets. Half an hour's boiling may
frustrate the care of weeks. And yet, on the other hand, light you
must have, and you can hardly have too much. Some animals
certainly prefer shade, and hide in the darkest crannies; and for
them, if your aquarium is large enough, you must provide shade, by
arranging the bits of stone into piles and caverns. But without
light, your sea-weeds will neither thrive nor keep the water sweet.
With plenty of light you will see, to quote Mr. Gosse once more,
(33) "thousands of tiny globules forming on every plant, and even
all over the stones, where the infant vegetation is beginning to
grow; and these globules presently rise in rapid succession to the
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