| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Arizona Nights by Stewart Edward White: around Yuma after midnight with a hole in your head?"
"Where's my coat?" he asked.
"You had no coat when I picked you up," I replied.
He looked at me mighty suspicious, but didn't say anything more--
he wouldn't even answer when I spoke to him. After he'd eaten a
fair meal he fell asleep. When I came back that evening the bunk
was empty and he was gone.
I didn't see him again for two days. Then I caught sight of him
quite a ways off. He nodded at me very sour, and dodged around
the corner of the store.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo: philosophers, whose arrogance would prescribe laws to nature, and
subject those astonishing effects, which we behold daily, to their
idle reasonings and chimerical rules. Presumptuous imagination!
that has given being to such numbers of books, and patrons to so
many various opinions about the overflows of the Nile. Some of
these theorists have been pleased to declare it as their favourite
notion that this inundation is caused by high winds which stop the
current, and so force the water to rise above its banks, and spread
over all Egypt. Others pretend a subterraneous communication
between the ocean and the Nile, and that the sea being violently
agitated swells the river. Many have imagined themselves blessed
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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 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, etc. by Oscar Wilde: dream, the boyish fancy of a young man who, like most ardent
spirits, was more anxious to convince others than to be himself
convinced.
As I had said some very unjust and bitter things to Erskine in my
letter, I determined to go and see him at once, and to make my
apologies to him for my behaviour. Accordingly, the next morning I
drove down to Birdcage Walk, and found Erskine sitting in his
library, with the forged picture of Willie Hughes in front of him.
'My dear Erskine!' I cried, 'I have come to apologise to you.'
'To apologise to me?' he said. 'What for?'
'For my letter,' I answered.
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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 Middlemarch by George Eliot: Mr. Bulstrode could not enjoy life in their fashion, eating and
drinking so little as he did, and worreting himself about everything,
he must have a sort of vampire's feast in the sense of mastery.
The subject of the chaplaincy came up at Mr. Vincy's table when Lydgate
was dining there, and the family connection with Mr. Bulstrode
did not, he observed, prevent some freedom of remark even on the
part of the host himself, though his reasons against the proposed
arrangement turned entirely on his objection to Mr. Tyke's sermons,
which were all doctrine, and his preference for Mr. Farebrother,
whose sermons were free from that taint. Mr. Vincy liked well enough
the notion of the chaplain's having a salary, supposing it were given
Middlemarch |
