| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lay Morals by Robert Louis Stevenson: high old settee, rudely carved with figures and Gothic
lettering, flanked it on either side; there was a hinge table
and a stone bench in the chimney corner, and above the arch
hung guns, axes, lanterns, and great sheaves of rusty keys.
Jonathan looked about him, holding up the lantern, and
shrugged his shoulders, with a pitying grimace. 'Here it
is,' he said. 'See the damp on the floor, look at the moss;
where there's moss you may be sure that it's rheumaticky.
Try and get near that fire for to warm yourself; it'll blow
the coat off your back. And with a young gentleman with a
face like yours, as pale as a tallow-candle, I'd be afeard of
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: temporalities of Crossraguel Abbey four years before, it was merely
fair pay for services fairly rendered; and I am not aware that
payment, or even favours, however gracious, bind any man's soul and
conscience in questions of highest morality and highest public
importance. And the importance of that question cannot be
exaggerated. At a moment when Scotland seemed struggling in death-
throes of anarchy, civil and religious, and was in danger of
becoming a prey either to England or to France, if there could not
be formed out of the heart of her a people, steadfast, trusty,
united, strong politically because strong in the fear of God and the
desire of righteousness--at such a moment as this, a crime had been
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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 Island Nights' Entertainments by Robert Louis Stevenson: "I have been drinking all day and making merry," said Keawe. "I
have been with good companions, and now I only come back for money,
and return to drink and carouse with them again."
Both his face and voice were as stern as judgment, but Kokua was
too troubled to observe.
"You do well to use your own, my husband," said she, and her words
trembled.
"O, I do well in all things," said Keawe, and he went straight to
the chest and took out money. But he looked besides in the corner
where they kept the bottle, and there was no bottle there.
At that the chest heaved upon the floor like a sea-billow, and 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 Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart: young world going by a-wheel, and going fast. Much that legitimately
belonged to it, and much that did not in the laxness of the new code,
he laid to the automobile. And doggedly he refused to buy one.
"We can always get a taxicab," was his imperturbable answer to Jim.
"I pay pretty good-sized taxi bills without unpleasant discussion.
I know you pretty well too, Jim. Better than you know yourself.
And if you had a car, you'd try your best to break your neck in it."
Now and then Jim got a car, however. Sometimes he rented one,
sometimes he cajoled Nina into lending him hers.
"A fellow looks a fool without one," he would say to her. "Girls
expect to be taken out. It's part of the game."
The Breaking Point |
