| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn: punishing the robbers of the dead. They had searched numberless
nooks of the coast, had given sepulture to many corpses, had
recovered a large amount of jewelry, and--as Feliu afterward
learned,--had summarily tried and executed several of the most
abandoned class of wreckers found with ill-gotten valuables in
their possession, and convicted of having mutilated the drowned.
But they came to Viosca's landing only to obtain information;--he
was too well known and liked to be a subject for suspicion; and,
moreover, he had one good friend in the crowd,--Captain Harris of
New Orleans, a veteran steamboat man and a market contractor, to
whom he had disposed of many a cargo of fresh pompano,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Faith of Men by Jack London: power, he knew the time did not favour to stir the people against
me.
"Before they could disperse I made announcement that while the
still went to Moosu, whatever hooch I possessed went to the people.
Moosu tried to protest at this, for never had we permitted more
than a handful to be drunk at a time; but they cried, 'KLOSHE!
KLOSHE!' and made festival before my door. And while they waxed
uproarious without, as the liquor went to their heads, I held
council within with Angeit and the faithful ones. I set them the
tasks they were to do, and put into their mouths the words they
were to say. Then I slipped away to a place back in the woods
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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 Whirligigs by O. Henry: lawyer handed him, folded it with immense labour, and
laced it carefully in his pocket.
Goree was standing near the window. "Step here,
said, raising his finger, "and I'll show you your recently
purchased enemy. There he goes, down the other side
of the street."
The mountaineer crooked his long frame to look
through the window in the direction indicated by the other.
Colonel Abner Coltrane, an erect, portly gentleman of
about fifty, wearing the inevitable long, double-breasted
frock coat of the Southern lawmaker, and an old high
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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 Idylls of the King by Alfred Tennyson: Taking my war-horse from the holy man,
Glad that no phantom vext me more, returned
To whence I came, the gate of Arthur's wars.'
`O brother,' asked Ambrosius,--`for in sooth
These ancient books--and they would win thee--teem,
Only I find not there this Holy Grail,
With miracles and marvels like to these,
Not all unlike; which oftentime I read,
Who read but on my breviary with ease,
Till my head swims; and then go forth and pass
Down to the little thorpe that lies so close,
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