| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Black Dwarf by Walter Scott: one of his sister's plaids around her, had passed unnoticed at
his first entrance. "How dared you do this?" said Hobbie.
"It wasna my fault," said Grace, endeavouring to cover her face
with her hands to hide at once her blushes, and escape the storm
of hearty kisses with which her bridegroom punished her simple
stratagem,--"It wasna my fault, Hobbie; ye should kiss Jeanie and
the rest o' them, for they hae the wyte o't."
"And so I will," said Hobbie, and embraced and kissed his sisters
and grandmother a hundred times, while the whole party half-
laughed, half-cried, in the extremity of their joy. "I am the
happiest man," said Hobbie, throwing himself down on a seat,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Nana, Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille by Emile Zola: view amid huge moving shadows.
In order fittingly to address the son of a queen, who would someday
occupy a throne, Bordenave had assumed the tone of a man exhibiting
a bear in the street. In a voice tremulous with false emotion he
kept repeating:
"If His Highness will have the goodness to follow me--would His
Highness deign to come this way? His Highness will take care!"
The prince did not hurry in the least. On the contrary, he was
greatly interested and kept pausing in order to look at the
sceneshifters' maneuvers. A batten had just been lowered, and the
group of gaslights high up among its iron crossbars illuminated the
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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 Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: Aaanthor lies in fifty south latitude, and forty east of
Horz, the deserted seat of ancient Barsoomian culture and
learning, while Dusar lies fifteen degrees north of the
equator and twenty degrees east from Horz.
Great though the distance is, the fliers covered it
without a stop. Long before they had reached their
destination Thuvia of Ptarth had learned several things
that cleared up the doubts that had assailed her mind for
many days. Scarce had they risen above Aaanthor than
she recognized one of the crew as a member of the crew
of that other flier that had borne her from her father's
Thuvia, Maid of Mars |
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 Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: tongue.
He showed me his own room, where he passed his time among
breviaries, Hebrew Bibles, and the Waverley Novels. Thence he led
me to the cloisters, into the chapter-house, through the vestry,
where the brothers' gowns and broad straw hats were hanging up,
each with his religious name upon a board - names full of legendary
suavity and interest, such as Basil, Hilarion, Raphael, or
Pacifique; into the library, where were all the works of Veuillot
and Chateaubriand, and the ODES ET BALLADES, if you please, and
even Moliere, to say nothing of innumerable fathers and a great
variety of local and general historians. Thence my good Irishman
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