| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe: Like a certain class of modern philosophers, Dinah perfectly
scorned logic and reason in every shape, and always took refuge in
intuitive certainty; and here she was perfectly impregnable. No
possible amount of talent, or authority, or explanation, could ever
make her believe that any other way was better than her own, or
that the course she had pursued in the smallest matter could be in
the least modified. This had been a conceded point with her old
mistress, Marie's mother; and "Miss Marie," as Dinah always called
her young mistress, even after her marriage, found it easier to
submit than contend; and so Dinah had ruled supreme. This was the
easier, in that she was perfect mistress of that diplomatic art
Uncle Tom's Cabin |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Hated Son by Honore de Balzac: its waves as they broke in a thousand liquid fringes upon the rocks.
He felt himself intrepid, free, and terrible as the sea itself; like
it, he bounded and fell back; he kept its solemn silence; he copied
its sudden pause. In short, he had wedded the sea; it was now his
confidant, his friend. In the morning when he crossed the glowing
sands of the beach and came upon his rocks, he divined the temper of
the ocean from a single glance; he could see landscapes on its
surface; he hovered above the face of the waters, like an angel coming
down from heaven. When the joyous, mischievous white mists cast their
gossamer before him, like a veil before the face of a bride, he
followed their undulations and caprices with the joy of a lover. 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 An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson: began heavy and chill. The water of the canal stood at about the
drinking temperature of tea; and under this cold aspersion, the
surface was covered with steam. The exhilaration of departure, and
the easy motion of the boats under each stroke of the paddles,
supported us through this misfortune while it lasted; and when the
cloud passed and the sun came out again, our spirits went up above
the range of stay-at-home humours. A good breeze rustled and
shivered in the rows of trees that bordered the canal. The leaves
flickered in and out of the light in tumultuous masses. It seemed
sailing weather to eye and ear; but down between the banks, the
wind reached us only in faint and desultory puffs. There was
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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 Case of The Lamp That Went Out by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: chance, saw a woman's figure hurrying through the garden, down to
the other street, and a moment after this, the light of this lamp
in your window was seen to go out. A hand had turned down the
wick - it was your hand.
"This was the signal to Mr. Thorne. The mirrors over his desk
reflected in his eyes the light he could not otherwise have seen
as he sat by his own window. The signal, therefore, told him that
the time had come to act. This same chance watcher, who had seen
the woman going through the garden, had seen the lamp go out, and
now saw a man's figure hurrying down the path the woman had taken.
The man as well as the woman came from this house and went in the
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