| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson: winds and the waves, the complexity and the fitfulness of
nature, are always before him. He has to deal with the
unpredictable, with those forces (in Smeaton's phrase) that
`are subject to no calculation'; and still he must predict,
still calculate them, at his peril. His work is not yet in
being, and he must foresee its influence: how it shall deflect
the tide, exaggerate the waves, dam back the rain-water, or
attract the thunderbolt. He visits a piece of sea-board; and
from the inclination and soil of the beach, from the weeds and
shell-fish, from the configuration of the coast and the depth
of soundings outside, he must deduce what magnitude of waves
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen: that could move a human heart in such a manner. It was a king's son who spoke;
whereon the others said, "Such people always want to be wiser than everybody
else."
They now let him go on alone; and as he went, his breast was filled more and
more with the forest solitude; but he still heard the little bell with which
the others were so satisfied, and now and then, when the wind blew, he could
also hear the people singing who were sitting at tea where the confectioner
had his tent; but the deep sound of the bell rose louder; it was almost as if
an organ were accompanying it, and the tones came from the left hand, the side
where the heart is placed. A rustling was heard in the bushes, and a little
boy stood before the King's Son, a boy in wooden shoes, and with so short a
Fairy Tales |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Beast in the Jungle by Henry James: themselves."
She took this in, but the light in her eyes continued for him not
to be that of mockery. "Isn't what you describe perhaps but the
expectation--or at any rate the sense of danger, familiar to so
many people--of falling in love?"
John Marcher thought. "Did you ask me that before?"
"No--I wasn't so free-and-easy then. But it's what strikes me
now."
"Of course," he said after a moment, "it strikes you. Of course it
strikes ME. Of course what's in store for me may be no more than
that. The only thing is," he went on, "that I think if it had been
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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 Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne:
Good Heavens! Had Mr. Dimmesdale actually spoken? For one
instant he believed that these words had passed his lips. But
they were uttered only within his imagination. The venerable
Father Wilson continued to step slowly onward, looking carefully
at the muddy pathway before his feet, and never once turning his
head towards the guilty platform. When the light of the
glimmering lantern had faded quite away, the minister discovered,
by the
The Scarlet Letter |
