| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Poems by Oscar Wilde: done.
And the old priest put out the waning fires
Save that one lamp whose restless ruby glowed
For ever in the cell, and the shrill lyres
Came fainter on the wind, as down the road
In joyous dance these country folk did pass,
And with stout hands the warder closed the gates of polished brass.
Long time he lay and hardly dared to breathe,
And heard the cadenced drip of spilt-out wine,
And the rose-petals falling from the wreath
As the night breezes wandered through the shrine,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Voice of the City by O. Henry: pound. He put on his store clothes of butternut
dyed black, a white shirt and collar, and packed a
carpet-sack with Spartan lingerie. He took his
squirrel rifle from its hooks, but put it back again
with a sigh. However ethical and plausible the habit
might be in the Cumberlands, perhaps New York
would not swallow his pose of hunting squirrels among
the skyscrapers along Broadway. An ancient but
reliable Colt's revolver that he resurrected from a
bureau drawer seemed to proclaim itself the pink of
weapons for metropolitan adventure and vengeance.
The Voice of the City |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Critias by Plato: parts, who, from their numbers, kept up a multitudinous sound of human
voices, and din and clatter of all sorts night and day.
I have described the city and the environs of the ancient palace nearly in
the words of Solon, and now I must endeavour to represent to you the nature
and arrangement of the rest of the land. The whole country was said by him
to be very lofty and precipitous on the side of the sea, but the country
immediately about and surrounding the city was a level plain, itself
surrounded by mountains which descended towards the sea; it was smooth and
even, and of an oblong shape, extending in one direction three thousand
stadia, but across the centre inland it was two thousand stadia. This part
of the island looked towards the south, and was sheltered from the north.
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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 Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: lessons are the most palatable, and make themselves welcome
to the mind. A writer learns this early, and it is his chief
support; he goes on unafraid, laying down the law; and he is
sure at heart that most of what he says is demonstrably
false, and much of a mingled strain, and some hurtful, and
very little good for service; but he is sure besides that
when his words fall into the hands of any genuine reader,
they will be weighed and winnowed, and only that which suits
will be assimilated; and when they fall into the hands of one
who cannot intelligently read, they come there quite silent
and inarticulate, falling upon deaf ears, and his secret is
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