| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Wyoming by William MacLeod Raine: when she knew that the man sitting beside her was the notorious
bandit of the Shoshone fastnesses. She was not in the least
afraid. A sure instinct told her he was not the kind of a man of
whom a woman need have fear so long as her own anchor held fast.
In good time she meant to let him have her unvarnished opinion of
him, but she did not mean it to be an unconsidered one. Wherefore
she drove the machine forward toward the camelbacked peak he had
indicated, her eyes straight before her, a frown corrugating her
forehead.
For him, having made his dramatic announcement, he seemed content
for the present with silence. He leaned back in the car and
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens: them, they did so at their pleasure. Thus, in the lightest
thoroughfares, there was at every turn some obscure and dangerous
spot whither a thief might fly or shelter, and few would care to
follow; and the city being belted round by fields, green lanes,
waste grounds, and lonely roads, dividing it at that time from the
suburbs that have joined it since, escape, even where the pursuit
was hot, was rendered easy.
It is no wonder that with these favouring circumstances in full and
constant operation, street robberies, often accompanied by cruel
wounds, and not unfrequently by loss of life, should have been of
nightly occurrence in the very heart of London, or that quiet folks
Barnaby Rudge |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Ruling Passion by Henry van Dyke: been forgotten for a generation. It was long after midnight when
the dancers paused, breathless and exhausted.
"Waal," said Hose Ransom, "that's jess the hightonedest music we
ever had to Bytown. You 're a reel player, Frenchy, that's what you
are. What's your name? Where'd you come from? Where you goin' to?
What brought you here, anyhow?"
"MOI?" said the fiddler, dropping his bow and taking a long breath.
"Mah nem Jacques Tremblay. Ah'll ben come fraum Kebeck. W'ere
goin'? Ah donno. Prob'ly Ah'll stop dis place, eef yo' lak' dat
feedle so moch, hein?"
His hand passed caressingly over the smooth brown wood of the
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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 Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain: to get a chunk of chestnut cake to defend herself with in case of a
Ghibelline outbreak before she got to school, at the same old stand
where they sell the same old cake to this day and it is just as light
and good as it was then, too, and this is not flattery, far from it.
He was a little rusty on his law, but he rubbed up for this book,
and those two or three legal chapters are right and straight, now.
He told me so himself.
Given under my hand this second day of January, 1893, at the Villa Viviani,
village of Settignano, three miles back of Florence, on the hills--
the same certainly affording the most charming view to be found
on this planet, and with it the most dreamlike and enchanting sunsets
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