| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: door. Americans, while occasionally willing to be serfs, have always
been obstinate about being peasantry.
After half an hour, the sun shone again, and the grocer's automobile
rounded Gatsby's drive with the raw material for his servants' dinner--I
felt sure he wouldn't eat a spoonful. A maid began opening the upper
windows of his house, appeared momentarily in each, and, leaning from a
large central bay, spat meditatively into the garden. It was time I
went back. While the rain continued it had seemed like the murmur of
their voices, rising and swelling a little now and then with gusts of
emotion. But in the new silence I felt that silence had fallen within
the house too.
The Great Gatsby |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from New Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson: See - you shall say - the love they send
To greet their unforgotten friend!
Giant Adulpho you shall sing
The next, and then the cradled king:
And the four corners of the roof
Then kindly bless; and to your perch aloof,
Where Balzac all in yellow dressed
And the dear Webster of the west
Encircle the prepotent throne
Of Shakespeare and of Calderon,
Shall climb an upstart.
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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 Door in the Wall, et. al. by H. G. Wells: going by a little teaching, but I am not a very good teacher, and
I have no university degree, nor very much education except in
chemistry, and I found I had to give a lot of time and labour for
precious little money. But I got nearer and nearer the thing.
Three years ago I settled the problem of the composition of the
flux, and got near the pressure by putting this flux of mine and a
certain carbon composition into a closed-up gun-barrel, filling up
with water, sealing tightly, and heating."
He paused.
"Rather risky," said I.
"Yes. It burst, and smashed all my windows and a lot of my
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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 Malbone: An Oldport Romance by Thomas Wentworth Higginson: such lovely hands! But his heart told him that no spent swimmer
ever transferred more eagerly to another's arms some precious
burden beneath which he was consciously sinking, than he would
yield her up to any one whom she would consent to love, and who
could be trusted with the treasure. Until that ecstasy of
release should come, he would do his duty,--yes, his duty.
When these flushed hopes grew pale, as they soon did, he could
at least play with the wan fancies that took their place. Hour
after hour, while she lavished upon him the sweetness of her
devotion, he was half consciously shaping with his tongue some
word of terrible revealing that should divide them like a
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