| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: Credit in these parts has passed into a superstition. I have seen
a strong, violent man struggling for months to recover a debt, and
getting nothing but an exchange of waste paper. The very
storekeepers are averse to asking for cash payments, and are more
surprised than pleased when they are offered. They fear there must
be something under it, and that you mean to withdraw your custom
from them. I have seen the enterprising chemist and stationer
begging me with fervour to let my account run on, although I had my
purse open in my hand; and partly from the commonness of the case,
partly from some remains of that generous old Mexican tradition
which made all men welcome to their tables, a person may be
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Westward Ho! by Charles Kingsley: For all best things, Amyas, become, when misused, the very worst;
and the love of woman, because it is able to lift man's soul to the
heavens, is also able to drag him down to hell. But you have
learnt better, Amyas; and know, with our old German forefathers,
that, as Tacitus saith, Sera juvenum Venus, ideoque inexhausta
pubertas. And not only that, Amyas; but trust me, that silly
fashion of the French and Italians, to be hanging ever at some
woman's apron string, so that no boy shall count himself a man
unless he can vagghezziare le donne, whether maids or wives, alas!
matters little; that fashion, I say, is little less hurtful to the
soul than open sin; for by it are bred vanity and expense, envy and
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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 Macbeth by William Shakespeare: Mal. Tis call'd the Euill.
A most myraculous worke in this good King,
Which often since my heere remaine in England,
I haue seene him do: How he solicites heauen
Himselfe best knowes: but strangely visited people
All swolne and Vlcerous, pittifull to the eye,
The meere dispaire of Surgery, he cures,
Hanging a golden stampe about their neckes,
Put on with holy Prayers, and 'tis spoken
To the succeeding Royalty he leaues
The healing Benediction. With this strange vertue,
Macbeth |
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 Blix by Frank Norris: all the good things of the world; and he felt his nobler side
rousing up and the awakening of the desire to be his better self.
Covertly he looked at her, as she sat near him, her yellow hair
rolling and blowing back from her forehead, her hands clasped over
her knee, looking out over the ocean, thoughtful, her eyes wide.
She had told him she did not love him. Condy remembered that
perfectly well. She was sincere in the matter; she did not love
him. That subject had been once and for all banished from their
intercourse. And it was because of that very reason that their
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