| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson: of the light-room floor was laid, which may be held as
finishing the masonry of this important national edifice.
After going through the usual ceremonies observed by the
brotherhood on occasions of this kind, the writer, addressing
himself to the artificers and seamen who were present, briefly
alluded to the utility of the undertaking as a monument of the
wealth of British commerce, erected through the spirited
measures of the Commissioners of the Northern Lighthouses by
means of the able assistance of those who now surrounded him.
He then took an opportunity of stating that toward those
connected with this arduous work he would ever retain the most
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson:
Treasure Island |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: no, it was a point, perhaps, difficult to decide, but which could
hardly have come up for judgment at all in any fair and healthy
mind. Out of New England, it would be impossible to meet with
a person combining so many ladylike attributes with so many
others that form no necessary (if compatible) part of the
character. She shocked no canon of taste; she was admirably in
keeping with herself, and never jarred against surrounding
circumstances. Her figure, to be sure,--so small as to be almost
childlike, and so elastic that motion seemed as easy or easier to
it than rest,would hardly have suited one's idea of a countess.
Neither did her face--with the brown ringlets on either side, and
House of Seven Gables |
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 Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: eloquence of the senate, the pulpit, and the bar, the coffee-house, the
bed-chamber, and fire-side, fall under consideration.
He stood,--for I repeat it, to take the picture of him in at one view, with
his body swayed, and somewhat bent forwards,--his right leg from under him,
sustaining seven-eighths of his whole weight,--the foot of his left leg,
the defect of which was no disadvantage to his attitude, advanced a
little,--not laterally, nor forwards, but in a line betwixt them;--his knee
bent, but that not violently,--but so as to fall within the limits of the
line of beauty;--and I add, of the line of science too;--for consider, it
had one eighth part of his body to bear up;--so that in this case the
position of the leg is determined,--because the foot could be no farther
|
