| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from St. Ives by Robert Louis Stevenson: 'It was not an affair of honour, then?' he asked.
'What was not? I do not follow,' said I.
He gave no sign of impatience; simply sat awhile silent, and began
again in the same placid and good-natured voice: 'The court and I
were at one in setting aside your evidence. It could not deceive a
child. But there was a difference between myself and the other
officers, because I KNEW MY MAN and they did not. They saw in you
a common soldier, and I knew you for a gentleman. To them your
evidence was a leash of lies, which they yawned to hear you
telling. Now, I was asking myself, how far will a gentleman go?
Not surely so far as to help hush a murder up? So that - when I
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: "Six months later the poor father heard that his son was about to be
arrested in Nantes. He walked there on foot, which is faster than by
sea, put his hands on his son, and compelled him to return home. Once
here, he did not ask him, 'What have you done?' but he said:--
"'If you do not conduct yourself properly at home with your mother and
me, and go fishing, and behave like an honest man, you and I will have
a reckoning.'
"The crazy fellow, counting on his parent's folly, made a face; on
which Pierre struck him a blow which sent Jacques to his bed for six
weeks. The poor mother nearly died of grief. One night, as she was
fast asleep beside her husband, a noise awoke her; she rose up
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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 Tom Sawyer Abroad by Mark Twain: country, and from over in the Illinois bottoms, too,
just to look at him -- and there they'd stand and gawk,
and he'd gabble. You never see anything like it.
Well, there wasn't any way now to settle which was
the greatest traveler; some said it was Nat, some said
it was Tom. Everybody allowed that Nat had seen
the most longitude, but they had to give in that what-
ever Tom was short in longitude he had made up in
latitude and climate. It was about a stand-off; so both
of them had to whoop up their dangerous adventures,
and try to get ahead THAT way. That bullet-wound in
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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 Marie by H. Rider Haggard: whence they returned at dawn.
On arriving at the mouth of Groote Kloof about four o'clock in the
afternoon, my father and I were astonished to see a great number of
Boers assembled there, and among them a certain sprinkling of their
younger womankind, who had come on horseback or in carts.
"Good gracious!" I said to my father; "if I had known there was to be
such a fuss as this about a shooting match, I don't think I could have
faced it."
"Hum," he answered; "I think there is more in the wind than your match.
Unless I am much mistaken, it has been made the excuse of a public
meeting in a secluded spot, so as to throw the Authorities off the
Marie |
