| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Travels of Sir John Mandeville by Sir John Mandeville: general passage ne voyage over the sea; and many men desire for to
hear speak of the Holy Land, and have thereof great solace and
comfort; I, John Mandeville, Knight, albeit I be not worthy, that
was born in England, in the town of St. Albans, and passed the sea
in the year of our Lord Jesu Christ, 1322, in the day of St.
Michael; and hitherto been long time over the sea, and have seen
and gone through many diverse lands, and many provinces and
kingdoms and isles and have passed throughout Turkey, Armenia the
little and the great; through Tartary, Persia, Syria, Arabia, Egypt
the high and the low; through Lybia, Chaldea, and a great part of
Ethiopia; through Amazonia, Ind the less and the more, a great
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Ursula by Honore de Balzac: "I leave learned men to discuss the cause of this event, which I
have frequently heard the Duc de Montmorency relate: I think that
the truth and singularity of the fact itself ought to be recorded
and preserved."
"If all this is so," said Ursula, "what ought I do do?"
"My child," said the abbe, "it concerns matters so important, and
which may prove so profitable to you, that you ought to keep
absolutely silent about it. Now that you have confided to me the
secret of these apparitions perhaps they may not return. Besides, you
are now strong enough to come to church; well, then, come to-morrow
and thank God and pray to him for the repose of your godfather's soul.
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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 Mountains by Stewart Edward White: And then, in the blue distance, the very crest of the
broad system called the Sierras,--another wide region
of sheer granite rising in peaks, pinnacles, and minarets,
rugged, wonderful, capped with the eternal snows.
IX
THE TRAIL
When you say "trail" to a Westerner, his eye
lights up. This is because it means something
to him. To another it may mean something
entirely different, for the blessed word is of that rare
and beautiful category which is at once of the widest
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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 Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: Saint-Simonized at the office of the "Globe," and every afternoon he
betook himself to the life-insurance company, where he learned the
intricacies of financial diplomacy. His aptitude and his memory were
prodigious; so that he was able to start on his peregrinations by the
15th of April, the date at which he usually opened the spring
campaign. Two large commercial houses, alarmed at the decline of
business, implored the ambitious Gaudissart not to desert the article
Paris, and seduced him, it was said, with large offers, to take their
commissions once more. The king of travellers was amenable to the
claims of his old friends, enforced as they were by the enormous
premiums offered to him.
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