| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad: nature, and then she will stand by you faithfully in the unceasing
struggle with forces wherein defeat is no shame. It is a serious
relation, that in which a man stands to his ship. She has her
rights as though she could breathe and speak; and, indeed, there
are ships that, for the right man, will do anything but speak, as
the saying goes.
A ship is not a slave. You must make her easy in a seaway, you
must never forget that you owe her the fullest share of your
thought, of your skill, of your self-love. If you remember that
obligation, naturally and without effort, as if it were an
instinctive feeling of your inner life, she will sail, stay, run
The Mirror of the Sea |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle: blotting-paper, but we provide this table and chair. Will you be
ready to-morrow?'
"'Certainly,' I answered.
"'Then, good-bye, Mr. Jabez Wilson, and let me congratulate you
once more on the important position which you have been fortunate
enough to gain.' He bowed me out of the room and I went home with
my assistant, hardly knowing what to say or do, I was so pleased
at my own good fortune.
"Well, I thought over the matter all day, and by evening I was in
low spirits again; for I had quite persuaded myself that the
whole affair must be some great hoax or fraud, though what its
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Selected Writings of Guy De Maupassant by Guy De Maupassant: broke into a hundred fragments as it fell on to the floor. With
trembling lips, she defied the looks of the officer, who was
still laughing, and she stammered out, in a voice choked with
rage: "That--that--that--is not true,--for you shall certainly
not have any French women."
He sat down again, so as to laugh at his ease, and trying
ineffectually to speak in the Parisian accent, he said: "That is
good, very good! Then what did you come here for, my dear?"
She was thunderstruck, and made no reply for a moment, for in her
agitation she did not understand him at first; but as soon as she
grasped his meaning, she said to him indignantly and vehemently:
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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 Merry Men by Robert Louis Stevenson: was sure he had seen such a look before, and yet he could not
remember how or where. It was as if this boy, who was quite a
stranger to him, had the eyes of an old friend or an old enemy.
And the boy would give him no peace; he seemed profoundly
indifferent to what was going on, or rather abstracted from it in a
superior contemplation, beating gently with his feet against the
bars of the chair, and holding his hands folded on his lap. But,
for all that, his eyes kept following the Doctor about the room
with a thoughtful fixity of gaze. Desprez could not tell whether
he was fascinating the boy, or the boy was fascinating him. He
busied himself over the sick man: he put questions, he felt the
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