| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Idylls of the King by Alfred Tennyson: Than to be noised of.'
Merrily Gareth asked,
'Have I not earned my cake in baking of it?
Let be my name until I make my name!
My deeds will speak: it is but for a day.'
So with a kindly hand on Gareth's arm
Smiled the great King, and half-unwillingly
Loving his lusty youthhood yielded to him.
Then, after summoning Lancelot privily,
'I have given him the first quest: he is not proven.
Look therefore when he calls for this in hall,
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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 Voice of the City by O. Henry: pretty enough face, now flushed and disturbed by
some unusual emotion, and restless, large eyes with
discontent marring their brightness. A heavy pile
of dull auburn hair, hastily put up, was escaping in
crinkly, waving strands and curling, small locks from
the confining combs and pins.
The meeting of the two was not marked by the
effusion vocal, gymnastical, osculatory and catecheti-
cal that distinguishes the greetings of their unpro-
fessional sisters in society. There was a brief clinch,
two simultaneous labial dabs and they stood on the
The Voice of the City |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: burghers, I thought it would be a graceful act for the corporation
to refund that sixpence, or, at the least, to entertain me to a
cheerful dinner. But there was no word of restitution. I was that
city's benefactor, yet I was received in a third-class waiting-
room, and the best dinner I could get was a dish of ham and eggs at
my own expense.
I can safely say, I have never been so dog-tired as that night in
Chicago. When it was time to start, I descended the platform like
a man in a dream. It was a long train, lighted from end to end;
and car after car, as I came up with it, was not only filled but
overflowing. My valise, my knapsack, my rug, with those six
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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 Dynamiter by Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Van De Grift Stevenson: had held him with her eye had now disappeared, taking his
honour in pledge; and as she had failed to leave him an
address, he was denied even the inglorious safety of retreat.
To use the paper-knife, or even to read the periodicals with
which she had presented him, was to renew the bitterness of
his remorse; and as he was alone in the compartment, he
passed the day staring at the landscape in impotent
repentance, and long before he was landed on the platform of
St. Enoch's, had fallen to the lowest and coldest zones of
self-contempt.
As he was hungry, and elegant in his habits, he would have
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