| 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: buy that with ten thou'--aye, or an hundred times ten thou'?
No, no, Harry, that fortune would cost me too dear. I have
seen and done and been too much. I've come back to the Big
Country, where the pay is poor and the work is hard and the
comfort small, but where a man and his soul meet their Maker face
to face."
The Cattleman had finished his yarn. For a time no one spoke.
Outside, the volume of rain was subsiding. Windy Bill reported
a few stars shining through rifts in the showers. The chill that
precedes the dawn brought us as close to the fire as the
smouldering guano would permit.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Beauty and The Beast by Bayard Taylor: meeting the same person shortly after, entering the wood from the
other side; but the farmers in the near fields saw two figures
issuing from the shade, hand in hand.
Each knew the other's month, before they slept, and the last thing
Jonathan said, with his head on David's shoulder, was, "You must
know our neighbors, the Bradleys, and especially Ruth." In the
morning, as they dressed, taking each other's garments at random,
as of old, Jonathan again said, "I have never seen a girl that I
like so well as Ruth Bradley. Do you remember what father said
about loving and marrying? It comes into my mind whenever I see
Ruth; but she has no sister."
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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 Middlemarch by George Eliot: written orders of the deceased. There were pall-bearers on horseback,
with the richest scarfs and hatbands, and even the under-bearers
had trappings of woe which were of a good well-priced quality.
The black procession, when dismounted, looked the larger for
the smallness of the churchyard; the heavy human faces and the
black draperies shivering in the wind seemed to tell of a world
strangely incongruous with the lightly dropping blossoms and
the gleams of sunshine on the daisies. The clergyman who met
the procession was Mr. Cadwallader--also according to the request
of Peter Featherstone, prompted as usual by peculiar reasons.
Having a contempt for curates, whom he always called understrappers,
Middlemarch |
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 An Episode Under the Terror by Honore de Balzac: "And it is so cold," continued his wife; "perhaps you have caught a
chill, madame, on your way here. But you can rest and warm yourself a
bit."
"We are not so black as the devil!" cried the man.
The kindly intention in the words and tones of the charitable couple
won the old lady's confidence. She said that a strange man had been
following her, and she was afraid to go home alone.
"Is that all!" returned he of the red bonnet; "wait for me,
citoyenne."
He handed the gold coin to his wife, and then went out to put on his
National Guard's uniform, impelled thereto by the idea of making some
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