| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain: the one basket and--_watch that basket!_"
--Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar
What a time of it Dawson's Landing was having! All its life
it had been asleep, but now it hardly got a chance for a nod,
so swiftly did big events and crashing surprises come along in one
another's wake: Friday morning, first glimpse of Real Nobility,
also grand reception at Aunt Patsy Cooper's, also great robber raid;
Friday evening, dramatic kicking of the heir of the chief citizen in
presence of four hundred people; Saturday morning, emergence as
practicing lawyer of the long-submerged Pudd'nhead Wilson;
Saturday night, duel between chief citizen and titled stranger.
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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 Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: Modern medicine, which passed (it is its fairest title to glory) from
a hypothetical to a positive science, through the influence of the
great analytical school of Paris, has proved beyond a doubt that a man
is periodically renewed throughout----"
"New haft, new blade, like Jeannot's knife, and yet you think that he
is still the same man," broke in Bixiou. "So there are several
lozenges in the harlequin's coat that we call happiness; and--well,
there was neither hole nor stain in this Godefroid's costume. A young
man of six-and-twenty, who would be happy in love, who would be loved,
that is to say, not for his blossoming youth, nor for his wit, nor for
his figure, but spontaneously, and not even merely in return for his
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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 Mysterious Island by Jules Verne: which the plateau was covered, the colonists thought no longer. Herbert's
critical state outweighed all other considerations. Would the removal prove
fatal to him by causing some internal injury? The reporter could not affirm
it, but he and his companions almost despaired of the result. The cart was
brought to the bend of the river. There some branches, disposed as a liner,
received the mattress on which lay the unconscious Herbert. Ten minutes
after, Cyrus Harding, Spilett, and Pencroft were at the foot of the cliff,
leaving Neb to take the cart on to the plateau of Prospect Heights. The
lift was put in motion, and Herbert was soon stretched on his bed in
Granite House.
What cares were lavished on him to bring him back to life! He smiled for
The Mysterious Island |
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 Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: propped against the threshold, along which the intruder must
foot it gingerly, clutching for support to sprays of poison
oak, the proper product of the country. Herein was, on
either hand, a triple tier of beds, where miners had once
lain; and the other gable was pierced by a sashless window
and a doorless doorway opening on the air of heaven, five
feet above the ground. As for the third room, which entered
squarely from the ground level, but higher up the hill and
farther up the canyon, it contained only rubbish and the
uprights for another triple tier of beds.
The whole building was overhung by a bold, lion-like, red
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