| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Lone Star Ranger by Zane Grey: In the middle of the day the light was weird and dim. When a
breeze fluttered the foliage, then slender shafts and spears of
sunshine pierced the green mantle and danced like gold on the
ground.
Duane had always felt the strangeness of this kind of place,
and likewise he had felt a protecting, harboring something
which always seemed to him to be the sympathy of the brake for
a hunted creature. Any unwounded creature, strong and
resourceful, was safe when he had glided under the low,
rustling green roof of this wild covert. It was not hard to
conceal tracks; the springy soil gave forth no sound; and men
The Lone Star Ranger |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates by Howard Pyle: down about his ears.
Our hero could hardly tell what followed, only that all of a
sudden there was a prodigious uproar of combat. knives flashed
everywhere, and then a pistol was fired so close to his head that
he stood like one stunned, hearing some one crying out in a loud
voice, but not knowing whether it was a friend or a foe who had
been shot. Then another pistol shot so deafened what was left of
Master Harry's hearing that his ears rang for above an hour
afterward. By this time the whole place was full of gunpowder
smoke, and there was the sound of blows and oaths and outcrying
and the clashing of knives.
Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Father Damien by Robert Louis Stevenson: his ugly office ere the bones are cold; unusual, and of a taste
which I shall leave my readers free to qualify; unusual, and to me
inspiring. If I have at all learned the trade of using words to
convey truth and to arouse emotion, you have at last furnished me
with a subject. For it is in the interest of all mankind, and the
cause of public decency in every quarter of the world, not only
that Damien should be righted, but that you and your letter should
be displayed at length, in their true colours, to the public eye.
To do this properly, I must begin by quoting you at large: I shall
then proceed to criticise your utterance from several points of
view, divine and human, in the course of which I shall attempt to
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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 Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: happen in heaven.--I remain, with the deepest respect, always your
humble servant,
"JOSEPHA MIRAH."
The lawyer, Maitre Hulot d'Ervy, hearing no more of the dreadful
Madame Nourrisson, seeing his father-in-law married, having brought
back his brother-in-law to the family fold, suffering from no
importunity on the part of his new stepmother, and seeing his mother's
health improve daily, gave himself up to his political and judicial
duties, swept along by the tide of Paris life, in which the hours
count for days.
One night, towards the end of the session, having occasion to write up
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