| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Astoria by Washington Irving: to guide them to a nearer and better one across the mountain.
Having no choice, being themselves utterly at fault, they set out
under this questionable escort. They had not gone far before they
fell in with the whole party of Crows, who, they now found, were
going the same road with themselves. The two cavalcades of white
and red men, therefore, pushed on together, and presented a wild
and picturesque spectacle, as, equipped with various weapons and
in various garbs, with trains of pack-horses, they wound in long
lines through the rugged defiles, and up and down the crags and
steeps of the mountain.
The travellers had again an opportunity to see and admire the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: "A H. V. il cedera;
De S. C. l. d. partira;
Eh nauf errera,
Decide a Gorix.
"Every letter is there!" [He repeats it.] "A Henry cinq cedera (his
crown of course); de Saint-Cloud partira; en nauf (that's an old
French word for skiff, vessel, felucca, corvette, anything you like)
errera--"
Dutocq. "What a tissue of absurdities! How can the King cede his crown
to Henry V., who, according to your nonsense, must be his grandson,
when Monseigneur le Dauphin is living. Are you prophesying the
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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 The Coxon Fund by Henry James: quarrel with her husband, the episode in which, vindictively,
disingenuously as they themselves had behaved, one had to admit
that he had put himself more grossly in the wrong than at any
moment of his life. He had begun by insulting the matchless
Mulvilles for these more specious protectors, and then, according
to his wont at the end of a few months, had dug a still deeper
ditch for his aberration than the chasm left yawning behind. The
chasm at Wimbledon was now blessedly closed; but the Pudneys,
across their persistent gulf, kept up the nastiest fire. I never
doubted they had a strong case, and I had been from the first for
not defending him--reasoning that if they weren't contradicted
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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 Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson:
Treasure Island |
