| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Blix by Frank Norris: was that cleanliness about her, that freshness, that suggested a
recent plunge in the surf and a "constitutional" along the beach.
One felt that here was stamina, good physical force, and fine
animal vigor. Her arms were large, her wrists were large, and her
fingers did not taper. Her hair was of a brown so light as to be
almost yellow. In fact, it would be safer to call it yellow from
the start--not golden nor flaxen, but plain, honest yellow. The
skin of her face was clean and white, except where it flushed to a
most charming pink upon her smooth, cool cheeks. Her lips were
full and red, her chin very round and a little salient. Curiously
enough, her eyes were small--small, but of the deepest, deepest
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from To-morrow by Joseph Conrad: eh? He always had a queer way of showing his
love."
"I could bring him round in a week," she sug-
gested, timidly.
He was too hungry to answer her; and, holding
the plate submissively to his hand, she began to
whisper up to him in a quick, panting voice. He
listened, amazed, eating slower and slower, till at
last his jaws stopped altogether. "That's his
game, is it?" he said, in a rising tone of scathing
contempt. An ungovernable movement of his arm
To-morrow |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: and the tropics to the Adirondack wilderness and the
stringent cold of the Canadian border. Here then, almost
before I had begun my story, I had two countries, two of the
ends of the earth involved: and thus though the notion of
the resuscitated man failed entirely on the score of general
acceptation, or even (as I have since found) acceptability,
it fitted at once with my design of a tale of many lands; and
this decided me to consider further of its possibilities.
The man who should thus be buried was the first question: a
good man, whose return to life would be hailed by the reader
and the other characters with gladness? This trenched upon
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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 Euthydemus by Plato: plenty of wood, if he never worked?
Certainly not, he said.
And if a person had wealth and all the goods of which we were just now
speaking, and did not use them, would he be happy because he possessed
them?
No indeed, Socrates.
Then, I said, a man who would be happy must not only have the good things,
but he must also use them; there is no advantage in merely having them?
True.
Well, Cleinias, but if you have the use as well as the possession of good
things, is that sufficient to confer happiness?
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