| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson: There were six passengers besides our two selves, which made of it a
full cabin. Three were solid merchants out of Leith, Kirkcaldy, and
Dundee, all engaged in the same adventure into High Germany. One was a
Hollander returning; the rest worthy merchants' wives, to the charge of
one of whom Catriona was recommended. Mrs. Gebbie (for that was her
name) was by great good fortune heavily incommoded by the sea, and lay
day and night on the broad of her back. We were besides the only
creatures at all young on board the ROSE, except a white-faced boy that
did my old duty to attend upon the table; and it came about that
Catriona and I were left almost entirely to ourselves. We had the next
seats together at the table, where I waited on her with extraordinary
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Captain Stormfield by Mark Twain: Talmage, who is laying up a considerable disappointment for
himself. He says, every now and then in his sermons, that the
first thing he does when he gets to heaven, will be to fling his
arms around Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and kiss them and weep on
them. There's millions of people down there on earth that are
promising themselves the same thing. As many as sixty thousand
people arrive here every single day, that want to run straight to
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and hug them and weep on them. Now mind
you, sixty thousand a day is a pretty heavy contract for those old
people. If they were a mind to allow it, they wouldn't ever have
anything to do, year in and year out, but stand up and be hugged
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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 Buttered Side Down by Edna Ferber: hair when it is beginning to turn gray is considered as good as
lost. Funny, ain't it? And yet I remember the minister's wife
used to wear false teeth--the kind that clicks. But hair is
different."
"Dear lady," said the blue-eyed man, "it would make no
difference to your own people. I know they would be happy to see
you, hair and all. One's own people----"
"My folks? That's just it. If the Prodigal Son had been a
daughter they'd probably have handed her one of her sister's mother
hubbards, and put her to work washing dishes in the kitchen. You
see, after Ma died my brother married, and I went to live with him
Buttered Side Down |
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 The Works of Samuel Johnson by Samuel Johnson: the chief effects of academies and societies; for
whatever be the bulk of their joint labours, every single
piece is always the production of an individual, that
owes nothing to his colleagues but the contagion of
diligence, a resolution to write, because the rest are
writing, and the scorn of obscurity while the rest are
illustrious[g].
[g] It may not be uninteresting to place in immediate comparison
with this finished paper its first rough draught as given in
Boswell, vol. i.
"Confederacies difficult; why.
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