| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain: Clarence, stood before me! I gasped with surprise;
my breath almost got away from me.
"What!" I said, "you here yet? Go along with
the rest of the dream! scatter!"
But he only laughed, in his light-hearted way, and
fell to making fun of my sorry plight.
"All right," I said resignedly, "let the dream go
on; I'm in no hurry."
"Prithee what dream?"
"What dream? Why, the dream that I am in
Arthur's court -- a person who never existed; and that
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Octopus by Frank Norris: white forehead; her wonderful eyes, violet blue, heavy lidded,
with their astonishing upward slant toward the temples, the slant
that gave a strange, oriental cast to her face, perplexing,
enchanting. He remembered the Egyptian fulness of the lips, the
strange balancing movement of her head upon her slender neck, the
same movement that one sees in a snake at poise. Never had he
seen a girl more radiantly beautiful, never a beauty so strange,
so troublous, so out of all accepted standards. It was small
wonder that Vanamee had loved her, and less wonder, still, that
his love had been so intense, so passionate, so part of himself.
Angele had loved him with a love no less than his own. It was
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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 New Arabian Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson: Brackenbury confessed to himself with enthusiasm that this was a
sovereign for whom a brave man might thankfully lay down his life.
Many minutes had thus passed, when the person who had introduced
them into the house, and who had sat ever since in a corner, and
with his watch in his hand, arose and whispered a word into the
Prince's ear.
"It is well, Dr. Noel," replied Florizel, aloud; and then
addressing the others, "You will excuse me, gentlemen," he added,
"if I have to leave you in the dark. The moment now approaches."
Dr. Noel extinguished the lamp. A faint, grey light, premonitory
of the dawn, illuminated the window, but was not sufficient 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 The Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: the night in writing to his mother.
"We shall both be free to-day," he said, smiling, when I went to see
him the next morning. "I am told that the general has signed your
pardon."
I was silent, and looked at him closely so as to carve his features,
as it were, on my memory. Presently an expression of disgust crossed
his face.
"I have been very cowardly," he said. "During all last night I begged
for mercy of these walls," and he pointed to the sides of his dungeon.
"Yes, yes, I howled with despair, I rebelled, I suffered the most
awful moral agony--I was alone! Now I think of what others will say of
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