| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: directly by their presences, and with few looks and fewer
words contrive to share their good and evil and uphold each
other's hearts in joy. For love rests upon a physical basis;
it is a familiarity of nature's making and apart from
voluntary choice. Understanding has in some sort outrun
knowledge, for the affection perhaps began with the
acquaintance; and as it was not made like other relations, so
it is not, like them, to be perturbed or clouded. Each knows
more than can be uttered; each lives by faith, and believes by
a natural compulsion; and between man and wife the language of
the body is largely developed and grown strangely eloquent.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Island Nights' Entertainments by Robert Louis Stevenson: abroad in the sides of Kona; and having already meddled with the
devil, he was the more chary of meeting with the dead. A little
beyond Honaunau, looking far ahead, he was aware of a woman bathing
in the edge of the sea; and she seemed a well-grown girl, but he
thought no more of it. Then he saw her white shift flutter as she
put it on, and then her red holoku; and by the time he came abreast
of her she was done with her toilet, and had come up from the sea,
and stood by the track-side in her red holoku, and she was all
freshened with the bath, and her eyes shone and were kind. Now
Keawe no sooner beheld her than he drew rein.
"I thought I knew everyone in this country," said he. "How comes
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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 A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy: Mrs. Swancourt laughed, and Elfride laughed, and Knight laughed,
in the midst of which pleasantness a man shouted to them from some
position between their heads and the sky, and they found they were
close to the Juliet, into which they quiveringly ascended.
It having been found that the lowness of the tide would prevent
their getting off for an hour, the Swancourts, having nothing else
to do, allowed their eyes to idle upon men in blue jerseys
performing mysterious mending operations with tar-twine; they
turned to look at the dashes of lurid sunlight, like burnished
copper stars afloat on the ripples, which danced into and
tantalized their vision; or listened to the loud music of a steam-
A Pair of Blue Eyes |
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 Historical Mystery by Honore de Balzac: wine of the ex-marquis,--we are not babes. You'll find a couple of
bottles on the empty cask near the door, and a bottle of white wine."
"Very good," said Violette, who never got drunk. "Let us drink."
"You have fifty thousand francs beneath the floor of your bedroom
under your bed, pere Violette; you will give them to me two weeks
after we sign the deed of sale before Grevin--" Violette stared at
Michu and grew livid. "Ah! you came here to spy upon a Jacobin who had
the honor to be president of the club at Arcis, and you imagine he
will let you get the better of him! I have eyes, I saw where your
tiles have been freshly cemented, and I concluded that you did not pry
them up to plant wheat there. Come, drink."
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