| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Coxon Fund by Henry James: appointment was made definite and I enquired how, all this time,
the unconscious candidate had carried himself.
"In perfection, really, by the happiest of chances: he has
positively been a dear. And then, as to what we revere him for, in
the most wonderful form. His very highest--pure celestial light.
You won't do him an ill turn?" Adelaide pleaded at the door.
"What danger can equal for him the danger to which he's exposed
from himself?" I asked. "Look out sharp, if he has lately been too
prim. He'll presently take a day off, treat us to some exhibition
that will make an Endowment a scandal."
"A scandal?" Mrs. Mulville dolorously echoed.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane: At a tottering moment a blow from Pete's hand struck the ally
and he crashed to the floor. He wriggled instantly to his feet and
grasping the quiet stranger's beer glass from the bar, hurled it at
Pete's head.
High on the wall it burst like a bomb, shivering fragments
flying in all directions. Then missiles came to every man's hand.
The place had heretofore appeared free of things to throw, but
suddenly glass and bottles went singing through the air. They were
thrown point blank at bobbing heads. The pyramid of shimmering
glasses, that had never been disturbed, changed to cascades as
heavy bottles were flung into them. Mirrors splintered to nothing.
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Edition of The Ambassadors by Henry James: anything, as well as rendered him proof against mystification.
When he reached home that night, however, he knew he had been, at
bottom, neither prepared nor proof; and since we have spoken of
what he was, after his return, to recall and interpret, it may as
well immediately be said that his real experience of these few
hours put on, in that belated vision--for he scarce went to bed
till morning--the aspect that is most to our purpose.
He then knew more or less how he had been affected--he but half
knew at the time. There had been plenty to affect him even after,
as has been said, they had shaken down; for his consciousness,
though muffled, had its sharpest moments during this passage, a
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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 Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: News, news, news. What do we know of yours? What do you care for
ours? We are in the midst of the rainy season, and dwell among
alarms of hurricanes, in a very unsafe little two-storied wooden
box 650 feet above and about three miles from the sea-beach.
Behind us, till the other slope of the island, desert forest,
peaks, and loud torrents; in front green slopes to the sea, some
fifty miles of which we dominate. We see the ships as they go out
and in to the dangerous roadstead of Apia; and if they lie far out,
we can even see their topmasts while they are at anchor. Of sounds
of men, beyond those of our own labourers, there reach us, at very
long intervals, salutes from the warships in harbour, the bell of
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