| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Essays of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: you like a garment. And if perchance you come forth upon an
eminence, where the wind blows upon you large and fresh, and the
pines knock their long stems together, like an ungainly sort of
puppets, and see far away over the plain a factory chimney defined
against the pale horizon - it is for you, as for the staid and simple
peasant when, with his plough, he upturns old arms and harness from
the furrow of the glebe. Ay, sure enough, there was a battle there
in the old times; and, sure enough, there is a world out yonder where
men strive together with a noise of oaths and weeping and clamorous
dispute. So much you apprehend by an athletic act of the
imagination. A faint far-off rumour as of Merovingian wars; a legend
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac: confidently hoped that repentance would ere long restore her husband
to her. It was with unspeakable repugnance that she had consented to
the scheme plotted by her aunt, Madame de Lansac, and at this moment
she feared she had made a mistake.
The evening's experience had saddened her innocent soul. Alarmed at
first by the Count's look of suffering and dejection, she had become
more so on seeing her rival's beauty, and the corruption of society
had gripped her heart. As she crossed the Pont Royal she threw away
the desecrated hair at the back of the diamond, given to her once as a
token of the purest affection. She wept as she remembered the bitter
grief to which she had so long been a victim, and shuddered more than
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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 Flower Fables by Louisa May Alcott: The tall trees, as their branches rustled in the wind, sang a low,
dreamy song, while the waving grass was filled with little voices
she had never heard before. Butterflies whispered lovely tales in
her ear, and birds sang cheerful songs in a sweet language she had
never understood before. Earth and air seemed filled with beauty
and with music she had never dreamed of until now.
"O tell me what it means, dear Fairy! is it another and a lovelier
dream, or is the earth in truth so beautiful as this?" she cried,
looking with wondering joy upon the Elf, who lay upon the flower
in her breast.
"Yes, it is true, dear child," replied the Fairy, "and few are the
Flower Fables |
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 Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring by George Bernard Shaw: hand to the gold, and found the Plutonic empire for himself. But
the choice between love and gold may not rest altogether with
him. He may be an ugly, ungracious, unamiable person, whose
affections may seem merely ludicrous and despicable to you. In
that case, you may repulse him, and most bitterly humiliate and
disappoint him. What is left to him then but to curse the love he
can never win, and turn remorselessly to the gold? With that, he
will make short work of your golden age, and leave you lamenting
its lost thoughtlessness and sweetness.
In due time the gold of Klondyke will find its way to the great
cities of the world. But the old dilemma will keep continually
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