| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce: He had been caught in a vortex and was being whirled on with
a velocity of advance and gyration that made him giddy and
sick. In few moments he was flung upon the gravel at the
foot of the left bank of the stream -- the southern bank --
and behind a projecting point which concealed him from his
enemies. The sudden arrest of his motion, the abrasion of
one of his hands on the gravel, restored him, and he wept
with delight. He dug his fingers into the sand, threw it
over himself in handfuls and audibly blessed it. It looked
like diamonds, rubies, emeralds; he could think of nothing
beautiful which it did not resemble. The trees upon the bank
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson: And the negro hunters' huts;--
Where the knotty crocodile
Lies and blinks in the Nile,
And the red flamingo flies
Hunting fish before his eyes;--
Where in jungles near and far,
Man-devouring tigers are,
Lying close and giving ear
Lest the hunt be drawing near,
Or a comer-by be seen
Swinging in the palanquin;--
A Child's Garden of Verses |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Rewards and Fairies by Rudyard Kipling: growth with their staves; and, like as not, between them a Saxon
wench, hand in hand with her man, shrilling like a kite as she ran,
and leaping high through the fern, all for joy of the sport.'
'Ah! How! Ah! How! How-ah! Sa-how-ah!' Puck bellowed
without warning, and Swallow bounded forward, ears cocked,
and nostrils cracking.
'Hal-lal-lal-lal-la-hai-ie!' Sir Richard answered in a high clear
shout.
The two voices joined in swooping circles of sound, and a
heron rose out of a red osier-bed below them, circling as though
he kept time to the outcry. Swallow quivered and swished his
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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 Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson: He reasons, and conviction closes his periods. This man shall be
my future guide: I will learn his doctrines and imitate his life."
"Be not too hasty," said Imlac, "to trust or to admire the teachers
of morality: they discourse like angels, but they live like men."
Rasselas, who could not conceive how any man could reason so
forcibly without feeling the cogency of his own arguments, paid his
visit in a few days, and was denied admission. He had now learned
the power of money, and made his way by a piece of gold to the
inner apartment, where he found the philosopher in a room half
darkened, with his eyes misty and his face pale. "Sir," said he,
"you are come at a time when all human friendship is useless; what
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