| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Touchstone by Edith Wharton: He looked up and met the interrogative smile of Barton Flamel, who
stood on the curbstone watching the retreating car with the eye of
a man philosophic enough to remember that it will be followed by
another.
Glennard felt his usual impulse of pleasure at meeting Flamel; but
it was not in this case curtailed by the reaction of contempt that
habitually succeeded it. Probably even the few men who had known
Flamel since his youth could have given no good reason for the
vague mistrust that he inspired. Some people are judged by their
actions, others by their ideas; and perhaps the shortest way of
defining Flamel is to say that his well-known leniency of view was
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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 Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: smash kills a hundred men's houses for them, as a railroad crash
kills their mortal frames and drives out the immortal tenants. Men
sicken of houses until at last they quit them, as the soul leaves
its body when it is tired of its infirmities. The body has been
called "the house we live in"; the house is quite as much the body
we live in. Shall I tell you some things the Professor said the
other day? - Do! - said the schoolmistress.
A man's body, - said the Professor, - is whatever is occupied by
his will and his sensibility. The small room down there, where I
wrote those papers you remember reading, was much more a portion of
my body than a paralytic's senseless and motionless arm or leg is
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from My Aunt Margaret's Mirror by Walter Scott: conversation?"
"You have had words together, Sir Philip," said Lady Bothwell.
"Naturally; we are connections," replied Sir Philip, "and as such
have always had the usual intercourse."
"That is an evasion of the subject," answered the lady. "By
words, I mean angry words, on the subject of your usage of your
wife."
"If," replied Sir Philip Forester, "you suppose Major Falconer
simple enough to intrude his advice upon me, Lady Bothwell, in my
domestic matters, you are indeed warranted in believing that I
might possibly be so far displeased with the interference as to
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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 Tom Sawyer Abroad by Mark Twain: early morning fogs started up, and it warn't no use to
sail over the top of it, because we would go by Egypt,
sure, so we judged it was best to set her by compass
straight for the place where the pyramids was gitting
blurred and blotted out, and then drop low and skin
along pretty close to the ground and keep a sharp
lookout. Tom took the hellum, I stood by to let go
the anchor, and Jim he straddled the bow to dig
through the fog with his eyes and watch out for danger
ahead. We went along a steady gait, but not very
fast, and the fog got solider and solider, so solid that
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