| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Pool of Blood in the Pastor's Study by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: apparently the only human being already up, stood beside the brook
at the point where the old bridge spans the streamlet, still
turbulent from the mountain floods. Janci was cutting willows to
make his Margit a new basket.
Once the shepherd raised his head from his work, for he thought he
heard a loud laugh somewhere in the near distance. But all seemed
silent and he turned back to his willows. The beauty of the
landscape about him was much too familiar a thing that he should
have felt or seen its charm. The violet hue of the distant woods,
the red gleaming of the heather-strewn moor, with its patches of
swamp from which the slow mist arose, the pretty little village with
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac: exists for me here in the canton or anywhere else," said the doctor,
forcing a smile. "Some natures feel a tyrannous need to attach
themselves to some one thing or being which they single out from among
the beings and things around them; this need is felt most keenly by a
man of quick sympathies, and all the more pressingly if his life has
been made desolate. So, trust me, it is a favorable sign if a man is
strongly attached to his dog or his horse! Among the suffering flock
which chance has given into my care, this poor little sufferer has
come to be for me like the pet lamb that the shepherd lasses deck with
ribbons in my own sunny land of Languedoc; they talk to it and allow
it to find pasture by the side of the cornfields, and its leisurely
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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 Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde: thought I spent too much of my time in going to Church, and in
Church duties. But where else could I turn? God's house is the
only house where sinners are made welcome, and you were always in
my heart, Gerald, too much in my heart. For, though day after day,
at morn or evensong, I have knelt in God's house, I have never
repented of my sin. How could I repent of my sin when you, my
love, were its fruit! Even now that you are bitter to me I cannot
repent. I do not. You are more to me than innocence. I would
rather be your mother - oh! much rather! - than have been always
pure . . . Oh, don't you see? don't you understand? It is my
dishonour that has made you so dear to me. It is my disgrace that
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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 Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson: the priest's stirrup while he mounted.
"Ay; but, Bennet, things are changed," returned the parson. "There
is now no Appleyard - rest his soul! - to keep the garrison. I
shall keep you, Bennet. I must have a good man to rest me on in
this day of black arrows. 'The arrow that flieth by day,' saith
the evangel; I have no mind of the context; nay, I am a sluggard
priest, I am too deep in men's affairs. Well, let us ride forth,
Master Hatch. The jackmen should be at the church by now."
So they rode forward down the road, with the wind after them,
blowing the tails of the parson's cloak; and behind them, as they
went, clouds began to arise and blot out the sinking sun. They had
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