| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tour Through Eastern Counties of England by Daniel Defoe: Sea Company immediately after the ruin of the former Sub-Governor
and Directors, whose overthrow makes the history of these times
famous.
Brentwood and Ingatestone, and even Chelmsford itself, have very
little to be said of them, but that they are large thoroughfare
towns, full of good inns, and chiefly maintained by the excessive
multitude of carriers and passengers which are constantly passing
this way to London with droves of cattle, provisions, and
manufactures for London.
The last of these towns is indeed the county town, where the county
gaol is kept, and where the assizes are very often held; it stands
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott: regularly splendid girls." With the delightful enthusiasm of youth,
they took the solitary boy into their midst and made much of him,
and he found something very charming in the innocent companionship
of these simple-hearted girls. Never having known mother or sisters,
he was quick to feel the influences they brought about him, and
their busy, lively ways made him ashamed of the indolent life he led.
He was tired of books, and found people so interesting now that Mr.
Brooke was obliged to make very unsatisfactory reports, for Laurie
was always playing truant and running over to the Marches'.
"Never mind, let him take a holiday, and make it up afterward,"
said the old gentleman. "The good lady next door says he is studying
Little Women |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Dynamiter by Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Van De Grift Stevenson: iron crockets of the window. He had scarce had time to
measure these disasters when his host re-entered the
apartment and proceeded, without a word, to envelop the
refined and urbane Challoner in a long ulster of the cheapest
material, and of a pattern so gross and vulgar that his
spirit sickened at the sight. This calumnious disguise was
crowned and completed by a soft felt hat of the Tyrolese
design, and several sizes too small. At another moment
Challoner would simply have refused to issue forth upon the
world thus travestied; but the desire to escape from Glasgow
was now too strongly and too exclusively impressed upon his
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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 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain: you? -- oldish man, with a --"
"No, I didn't see nobody, Aunt Sally. The boat
landed just at daylight, and I left my baggage on the
wharf-boat and went looking around the town and out
a piece in the country, to put in the time and not get
here too soon; and so I come down the back way."
"Who'd you give the baggage to?"
"Nobody."
"Why, child, it 'll be stole!"
"Not where I hid it I reckon it won't," I says.
"How'd you get your breakfast so early on the
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn |
