| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle: seamed it across, and the twisted lip which had given the
repulsive sneer to the face! A twitch brought away the tangled
red hair, and there, sitting up in his bed, was a pale,
sad-faced, refined-looking man, black-haired and smooth-skinned,
rubbing his eyes and staring about him with sleepy bewilderment.
Then suddenly realizing the exposure, he broke into a scream and
threw himself down with his face to the pillow.
"Great heavens!" cried the inspector, "it is, indeed, the missing
man. I know him from the photograph."
The prisoner turned with the reckless air of a man who abandons
himself to his destiny. "Be it so," said he. "And pray what am I
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from 1492 by Mary Johntson: and sending up a thin cloud of odorous smoke. These burning
sticks they dropped as they rose. They had seemed so
silent, so contented, so happy, sitting there with backs to
trees, a firebrand in each mouth, I felt a love for them!
Luis thought the lighted sticks some rite of their religion,
but after a while when we came to examine them, we found
them not true stick, but some large, thickish brown leaf
tightly twisted and pressed together and having a pungent,
not unpleasing odor. We crumbled one in our hands and
tasted it. The taste was also pungent, strange, but one
might grow to like it. They called the stick tobacco, and
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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 Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: When he was satisfied with his day's business, he would rub his hands;
his inward glee would escape like smoke through every rift and wrinkle
of his face;--in no other way is it possible to give an idea of the
mute play of muscle which expressed sensations similar to the
soundless laughter of Leather Stocking. Indeed, even in transports of
joy, his conversation was confined to monosyllables; he wore the same
non-committal countenance.
"This was the neighbor Chance found for me in the house in the Rue de
Gres, where I used to live when as yet I was only a second clerk
finishing my third year's studies. The house is damp and dark, and
boasts no courtyard. All the windows look on the street; the whole
Gobseck |
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 Essays of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: I took it bashfully, feeling I had begun my American career on the
wrong foot. I did not enjoy that cigar; but this may have been from
a variety of reasons, even the best cigar often failing to please if
you smoke three-quarters of it in a drenching rain.
For many years America was to me a sort of promised land; 'westward
the march of empire holds its way'; the race is for the moment to the
young; what has been and what is we imperfectly and obscurely know;
what is to be yet lies beyond the flight of our imaginations.
Greece, Rome, and Judaea are gone by forever, leaving to generations
the legacy of their accomplished work; China still endures, an old-
inhabited house in the brand-new city of nations; England has already
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