| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: this blighting weather; the wind pipes, the rain comes in squalls,
great black clouds are continually overhead, and it is as cold as
March. The country is delightful, more cannot be said; it is very
beautiful, a perfect joy when we get a blink of sun to see it in.
The Queen knows a thing or two, I perceive; she has picked out the
finest habitable spot in Britain.
I have done no work, and scarce written a letter for three weeks,
but I think I should soon begin again; my cough is now very
trifling. I eat well, and seem to have lost but I little flesh in
the meanwhile. I was WONDERFULLY well before I caught this horrid
cold. I never thought I should have been as well again; I really
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy: half rose with a smile of pleasure, held out her slender, delicate
hand to him, and began to speak in a voice in which for the first time
new deep womanly notes vibrated. Mademoiselle Bourienne, who was in
the drawing room, looked at Princess Mary in bewildered surprise.
Herself a consummate coquette, she could not have maneuvered better on
meeting a man she wished to attract.
"Either black is particularly becoming to her or she really has
greatly improved without my having noticed it. And above all, what
tact and grace!" thought Mademoiselle Bourienne.
Had Princess Mary been capable of reflection at that moment, she
would have been more surprised than Mademoiselle Bourienne at the
War and Peace |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain: Island No. 10, a place so celebrated during the war.
This gentleman's home was on the main shore in its neighborhood.
I had some talk with him about the war times; but presently
the discourse fell upon 'feuds,' for in no part of the South
has the vendetta flourished more briskly, or held out longer
between warring families, than in this particular region.
This gentleman said--
'There's been more than one feud around here, in old times, but I
reckon the worst one was between the Darnells and the Watsons.
Nobody don't know now what the first quarrel was about, it's so long ago;
the Darnells and the Watsons don't know, if there's any of them living,
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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 Touchstone by Edith Wharton: circumstances. . . ." He paused, with a dry throat. It seemed to
him at the moment that it would be impossible for him ever to sink
lower in his own estimation. He was in truth less ashamed of
weighing the temptation than of submitting his scruples to a man
like Flamel, and affecting to appeal to sentiments of delicacy on
the absence of which he had consciously reckoned. But he had
reached a point where each word seemed to compel another, as each
wave in a stream is forced forward by the pressure behind it; and
before Flamel could speak he had faltered out--"You don't think
people could say . . . could criticise the man. . . ."
"But the man's dead, isn't he?"
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