| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from When a Man Marries by Mary Roberts Rinehart: surmounted by an arch led into the coal cellar, beneath the
street. The coal cellar was of brick, with a cement floor, and in
the left wall there gaped an opening about three feet by three,
leading into a cavernous void, perfectly black--evidently a
similar vault belonging to the next house.
The whole place was ghostly, full of shadows, shivery with
possibilities. It was Mr. Harbison finally who took Jim's candle
and crawled through the aperture. We waited in dead silence,
listening to his feet crunching over the coal beyond, watching
the faint yellow light that came through the ragged opening in
the wall. Then he came back and called through to us.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne: travelled fifty leagues away from Snæfell. Although we were tired,
our health was perfect, and the medicine chest had not yet had
occasion to be opened.
My uncle noted every hour the indications of the compass, the
chronometer, the aneroid, and the thermometer the very same which he
has published in his scientific report of our journey. It was
therefore not difficult to know exactly our whereabouts. When he told
me that we had gone fifty leagues horizontally, I could not repress
an exclamation of astonishment, at the thought that we had now long
left Iceland behind us.
"What is the matter?" he cried.
Journey to the Center of the Earth |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: again, to prove you are forgiving.
Letter: TO MR. AND MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
HOTEL DU PAVILLON HENRY IV., ST. GERMAIN-EN-LAYE, SUNDAY, MAY 1ST,
1881.
MY DEAR PEOPLE, - A week in Paris reduced me to the limpness and
lack of appetite peculiar to a kid glove, and gave Fanny a jumping
sore throat. It's my belief there is death in the kettle there; a
pestilence or the like. We came out here, pitched on the STAR and
GARTER (they call it Somebody's pavilion), found the place a bed of
lilacs and nightingales (first time I ever heard one), and also of
a bird called the PIASSEUR, cheerfulest of sylvan creatures, an
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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 Twelve Stories and a Dream by H. G. Wells: soon comparing their journeys, and Helen and Fanny were cruelly
overlooked in the conversation. It was to be the same journey,
they found; one day for the galleries at Florence--"from what I
hear," said the young man, "it is barely enough,"--and the rest
at Rome. He talked of Rome very pleasantly; he was evidently quite
well read, and he quoted Horace about Soracte. Miss Winchelsea had
"done" that book of Horace for her matriculation, and was delighted
to cap his quotation. It gave a sort of tone to things, this
incident--a touch of refinement to mere chatting. Fanny expressed
a few emotions, and Helen interpolated a few sensible remarks, but
the bulk of the talk on the girls' side naturally fell to Miss
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