| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson: aspect of things at the rock was much altered. The beacon-
house and building had both a naked look to those accustomed
to their former appearance; a curious optical deception was
also remarked, by which the lighthouse seemed to incline from
the perpendicular towards the beacon. The horizontal rope-
ladder before noticed was again stretched to preserve the
communication, and the artificers were once more obliged to
practise the awkward and straddling manner of their passage
between them during 1809.
At twelve noon the bell rung for prayers, after which the
artificers went to dinner, when the writer passed along 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 Extracts From Adam's Diary by Mark Twain: lions and tigers. I advised her to keep away from the tree. She
said she wouldn't. I foresee trouble. Will emigrate.
Wednesday
I have had a variegated time. I escaped that night, and rode a
horse all night as fast as he could go, hoping to get clear out of
the Park and hide in some other country before the trouble should
begin; but it was not to be. About an hour after sunup, as I was
riding through a flowery plain where thousands of animals were
grazing, slumbering, or playing with each other, according to their
wont, all of a sudden they broke into a tempest of frightful noises,
and in one moment the plain was in a frantic commotion and every
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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 Poor and Proud by Oliver Optic: The next day was Wednesday, and as school kept but half a day,
Katy resolved to spend the afternoon in finding out which of her
employees was in the habit of practicing the deception which Mrs.
Gordon had described to her. She could think of no one upon whom
she could fasten the guilt, unless it was Ann Grippen, who, she
thought, would be more likely to play such a trick than any
other. After she had delivered their candy, she put on her things
and followed the girls down to State Street, where they
separated. Ann went up Court Street, and Katy decided that she
needed watching, and so she followed her.
It was a very tedious afternoon to the little wholesale merchant,
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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 The Call of the Wild by Jack London: and Buck and Thornton were jerked under the water. Strangling,
suffocating, sometimes one uppermost and sometimes the other,
dragging over the jagged bottom, smashing against rocks and snags,
they veered in to the bank.
Thornton came to, belly downward and being violently propelled
back and forth across a drift log by Hans and Pete. His first
glance was for Buck, over whose limp and apparently lifeless body
Nig was setting up a howl, while Skeet was licking the wet face
and closed eyes. Thornton was himself bruised and battered, and
he went carefully over Buck's body, when he had been brought
around, finding three broken ribs.
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