| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Captain Stormfield by Mark Twain: a smiling old gentleman and asked me to hold HIS things. I swabbed
off the perspiration and says, pretty tart -
"I'll have to get you to excuse me, my friend, - I ain't no hat-
rack."
About this time I begun to run across piles of those traps, lying
in the road. I just quietly dumped my extra cargo along with them.
I looked around, and, Peters, that whole nation that was following
me were loaded down the same as I'd been. The return crowd had got
them to hold their things a minute, you see. They all dumped their
loads, too, and we went on.
When I found myself perched on a cloud, with a million other
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from From London to Land's End by Daniel Defoe: within doors that could possibly be made, though its situation
being such as it could not be allowed to stand after the great
building was finished, we now see no remains of it.
The queen had here her gallery of beauties, being the pictures at
full-length of the principal ladies attending upon her Majesty, or
who were frequently in her retinue; and this was the more beautiful
sight because the originals were all in being, and often to be
compared with their pictures. Her Majesty had here a fine
apartment, with a set of lodgings for her private retreat only, but
most exquisitely furnished, particularly a fine chintz bed, then a
great curiosity; another of her own work while in Holland, very
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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 Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: be outside the mark; and 100 Cornhill pages of 500 words means, I
fancy (but I never was good at figures), means 500,00 words.
There's a prospect for an idle young gentleman who lives at home at
ease! The future is thick with inky fingers. And then perhaps
nobody would publish. AH NOM DE DIEU! What do you think of all
this? will it paddle, think you?
I hope this pen will write; it is the third I have tried.
About coming up, no, that's impossible; for I am worse than a
bankrupt. I have at the present six shillings and a penny; I have
a sounding lot of bills for Christmas; new dress suit, for
instance, the old one having gone for Parliament House; and new
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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 Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: From the great deeps of the spirit,
From the unplummeted abysmus
Of the soul this laughter welleth
As the fountain, the gug-guggle,
Like the river from the canon [sic],
To entoken and give warning
That my present mood is sunny.
Should you ask me further question --
Why the great deeps of the spirit,
Why the unplummeted abysmus
Of the soule extrudes this laughter,
The Devil's Dictionary |
