| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Burning Daylight by Jack London: had been Daylight's objective all the time. Every incoming
coastwise vessel was boarded by the union officials and its crew
sent ashore. And with the Seamen went the firemen, the
engineers, and the sea cooks and waiters. Daily the number of
idle steamers increased. It was impossible to get scab crews,
for the men of the Seaman's Union were fighters trained in the
hard school of the sea, and when they went out it meant blood and
death to scabs. This phase of the strike spread up and down the
entire Pacific coast, until all the ports were filled with idle
ships, and sea transportation was at a standstill. The days and
weeks dragged out, and the strike held. The Coastwise Steam
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: And of this temper, when it stands alone, I find it difficult to
speak; but I should counsel such an one to take to letters, for in
literature (which drags with so wide a net) all his information may
be found some day useful, and if he should go on as he has begun,
and turn at last into the critic, he will have learned to use the
necessary tools. Lastly we come to those vocations which are at
once decisive and precise; to the men who are born with the love of
pigments, the passion of drawing, the gift of music, or the impulse
to create with words, just as other and perhaps the same men are
born with the love of hunting, or the sea, or horses, or the
turning-lathe. These are predestined; if a man love the labour of
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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 Market-Place by Harold Frederic: overhead was serenely cloudless; the lake beneath,
stirring softly under some faint passing breeze,
revealed its full breadth with crystalline distinctness.
Between sky and water there stretched across the picture
a broad, looming, dimly-defined band of shadow, marked here
and there at the top by little slanting patches of an
intensely glowing white. He looked at this darkling middle
distance for a moment or two without comprehension.
Then he turned and hurriedly moved to the door of Julia's
room and beat upon it.
"Get up!" he called through the panels. "Here's your
The Market-Place |
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 Caesar's Commentaries in Latin by Julius Caesar: Quos Caesar, ut in miseros ac supplices usus misericordia videretur,
diligentissime conservavit suisque finibus atque oppidis uti iussit et
finitimis imperavit ut ab iniuria et maleficio se suosque prohiberent.
Atuatuci, de quibus supra diximus, cum omnibus copiis auxilio Nerviis
venirent, hac pugna nuntiata ex itinere domum reverterunt; cunctis oppidis
castellisque desertis sua omnia in unum oppidum egregie natura munitum
contulerunt. Quod cum ex omnibus in circuitu partibus altissimas rupes
deiectusque haberet, una ex parte leniter acclivis aditus in latitudinem
non amplius pedum CC relinquebatur; quem locum duplici altissimo muro
munierant; tum magni ponderis saxa et praeacutas trabes in muro
conlocabant. Ipsi erant ex Cimbris Teutonisque prognati, qui, cum iter in
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