| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Vision Splendid by William MacLeod Raine: Presently, at a look from the nurse, his guests departed.
Outside the building Miller left the rest abruptly. Flanked by the
two cousins, Alice crossed Yarnell Way back to that world to which
she had always belonged.
James laid down the law to her concerning the folly of such
excursions into the unconventional. Alice listened. She discovered
that his viewpoint was exactly like that of Ned Merrill. Any
deviation from the conventional was a mistake. Any attempt to
escape from existing conditions was a form of treason. Trade,
property, business, respectability, good form; these were the
shibboleth they worshipped. It was just because she did not want
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Child of Storm by H. Rider Haggard: adventures; the strange tribes with whom I came in contact; in short,
the change, the danger, the hope always of finding something great and
new, that attracted and still attracts me, even now when I _have_ found
the great and the new. There, I must not go on writing like this, or I
shall throw down my pen and book a passage for Africa, and incidentally
to the next world, no doubt--that world of the great and new!
It was, I think, in the month of May in the year 1854 that I went
hunting in rough country between the White and Black Umvolosi Rivers, by
permission of Panda--whom the Boers had made king of Zululand after the
defeat and death of Dingaan his brother. The district was very
feverish, and for this reason I had entered it in the winter months.
Child of Storm |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson: trenailing of the stones formerly laid. At noon the writer,
with the seamen and artificers, proceeded to the tender,
leaving on the beacon the joiners, and several of those who
were troubled with sea-sickness - among whom was Mr. Logan,
who remained with Mr. Watt - counting altogether eleven
persons. During the first and middle parts of these twenty-
four hours the wind was from the east, blowing what the seamen
term `fresh breezes'; but in the afternoon it shifted to
E.N.E., accompanied with so heavy a swell of sea that the
SMEATON and tender struck their topmasts, launched in their
bolt-sprits, and `made all snug' for a gale. At four p.m. the
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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 Essays of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: prepared to find him turn away from a diet which was palatable to
myself. Words I should have disregarded, or taken with a liberal
allowance; but when a man prefers dry biscuit there can be no
question of the sincerity of his disgust.
With one of their complaints I could most heartily sympathise. A
single night of the steerage had filled them with horror. I had
myself suffered, even in my decent-second-cabin berth, from the lack
of air; and as the night promised to be fine and quiet, I determined
to sleep on deck, and advised all who complained of their quarters to
follow my example. I dare say a dozen of others agreed to do so, and
I thought we should have been quite a party. Yet, when I brought up
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