| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson: least her father's, and he was gone for the day to Pittencrieff.
We waited for no second bidding, for bread and cheese is but cold
comfort and the puddings smelt excellently well; and while we sat
and ate, she took up that same place by the next table, looking
on, and thinking, and frowning to herself, and drawing the string
of her apron through her hand.
"I'm thinking ye have rather a long tongue," she said at last to
Alan.
"Ay" said Alan; "but ye see I ken the folk I speak to."
"I would never betray ye," said she, "if ye mean that."
"No," said he, "ye're not that kind. But I'll tell ye what ye
Kidnapped |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett: picked her the balm, an' we started. Why, yes, Susan, the minister
liked to have cost me my life that day. He would fasten the sheet,
though I advised against it. He said the rope was rough an' cut
his hand. There was a fresh breeze, an' he went on talking rather
high flown, an' I felt some interested. All of a sudden there come
up a gust, and he gave a screech and stood right up and called for
help, 'way out there to sea. I knocked him right over into the
bottom o' the bo't, getting by to catch hold of the sheet an' untie
it. He wasn't but a little man; I helped him right up after the
squall passed, and made a handsome apology to him, but he did act
kind o' offended."
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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 The Works of Samuel Johnson by Samuel Johnson: which it inhabits; the anatomy of the mind, as that
of the body, must perpetually exhibit the same
appearances; and though by the continued industry
of successive inquirers, new movements will be from
time to time discovered, they can affect only the
minuter parts, and are commonly of more curiosity
than importance.
It will now be natural to inquire, by what arts are
the writers of the present and future ages to attract
the notice and favour of mankind. They are to
observe the alterations which time is always making
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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 Study of a Woman by Honore de Balzac: Occasionally some fops have been sufficiently impertinent to press the
hand of the marquise while dancing with her. They gained nothing in
return but contemptuous glances; all were made to feel the shock of
that insulting indifference which, like a spring frost, destroys the
germs of flattering hopes. Beaux, wits, and fops, men whose sentiments
are fed by sucking their canes, those of a great name, or a great
fame, those of the highest or the lowest rank in her own world, they
all blanch before her. She has conquered the right to converse as long
and as often as she chooses with the men who seem to her agreeable,
without being entered on the tablets of gossip. Certain coquettish
women are capable of following a plan of this kind for seven years in
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