| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain: you flinch, I'll kill you. Do you understand that?
And if I have to kill you, I'll kill her -- and then I
reckon nobody'll ever know much about who done
this business."
"Well, if it's got to be done, let's get at it. The
quicker the better -- I'm all in a shiver."
"Do it NOW? And company there? Look here --
I'll get suspicious of you, first thing you know. No
-- we'll wait till the lights are out -- there's no hurry."
Huck felt that a silence was going to ensue -- a
thing still more awful than any amount of murderous
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister: He came from South Carolina; and believing his seed and name were
perished there to-day, I gave him a descendant. I have learned that the
name, until recently, was in existence; I trust it will not seem taken in
vain in these pages.
Whence came such a person as Augustus?
Our happier cities produce many Augustuses, and may they long continue to
do so! If Augustus displeases any one, so much the worse for that one,
not for Augustus. To be sure, he doesn't admire over heartily the
parvenus of steel or oil, whose too sudden money takes them to the
divorce court; he calls them the 'yellow rich'; do you object to that?
Nor does he think that those Americans who prefer their pockets to their
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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 Facino Cane by Honore de Balzac: Picture to yourself a plaster mask of Dante in the red lamplight, with
a forest of silver-white hair above the brows. Blindness intensified
the expression of bitterness and sorrow in that grand face of his; the
dead eyes were lighted up, as it were, by a thought within that broke
forth like a burning flame, lit by one sole insatiable desire, written
large in vigorous characters upon an arching brow scored across with
as many lines as an old stone wall.
The old man was playing at random, without the slightest regard for
time or tune. His fingers traveled mechanically over the worn keys of
his instrument; he did not trouble himself over a false note now and
again (a /canard/, in the language of the orchestra), neither did the
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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 Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin by Robert Louis Stevenson: From half-past eleven in the morning until half-past five at night,
they were in immediate and unceasing danger. Upon the least
mishap, the PURGLE must either have been swamped by the seas or
bulged upon the cliffs of that rude headland. Fleeming and
Robertson took turns baling and steering; Mrs. Jenkin, so violent
was the commotion of the boat, held on with both hands; Frewen, by
Robertson's direction, ran the engine, slacking and pressing her to
meet the seas; and Bernard, only twelve years old, deadly sea-sick,
and continually thrown against the boiler, so that he was found
next day to be covered with burns, yet kept an even fire. It was a
very thankful party that sat down that evening to meat in the Hotel
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