| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley: buttered, and which way the cat jumped, that he began to make
things which would work, and go on working, too; to till and drain
the ground, and to make looms, and ships, and railroads, and steam
ploughs, and electric telegraphs, and all the things which you see
in the Great Exhibition; and to foretell famine, and bad weather,
and the price of stocks and (what is hardest of all) the next
vagary of the great idol Whirligig, which some call Public Opinion;
till at last he grew as rich as a Jew, and as fat as a farmer, and
people thought twice before they meddled with him, but only once
before they asked him to help them; for, because he earned his
money well, he could afford to spend it well likewise.
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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 War in the Air by H. G. Wells: And about four o'clock in the afternoon upon a wide and rocky
plain within sight of snow-crested cliffs, the Vaterland ripped
and grounded.
It was necessarily a difficult and violent affair, for the
Vaterland had not been planned for the necessities of a balloon.
The captain got one panel ripped too soon and the others not soon
enough. She dropped heavily, bounced clumsily, and smashed the
hanging gallery into the fore-part, mortally injuring Von
Winterfeld, and then came down in a collapsing heap after
dragging for some moments. The forward shield and its machine
gun tumbled in upon the things below. Two men were hurt badly--
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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 Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: clean clay pipe in his teeth. These visits, in our forest
state, had quite the air of an event, and turned our red
canyon into a salon.
Such was the pair who ruled in the old Silverado Hotel, among
the windy trees, on the mountain shoulder overlooking the
whole length of Napa Valley, as the man aloft looks down on
the ship's deck. There they kept house, with sundry horses
and fowls, and a family of sons, Daniel Webster, and I think
George Washington, among the number. Nor did they want
visitors. An old gentleman, of singular stolidity, and
called Breedlove - I think he had crossed the plains in the
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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 Prince Otto by Robert Louis Stevenson: began to make better speed.
All was bright within; the wine had coloured Gotthold's cheek; dim
forms of forest trees, dwindling and spiring, scarves of the starry
sky, now wide and now narrow, raced past the windows, through one
that was left open the air of the woods came in with a nocturnal
raciness; and the roll of wheels and the tune of the trotting horses
sounded merrily on the ear. Toast followed toast; glass after glass
was bowed across and emptied by the trio; and presently there began
to fall upon them a luxurious spell, under the influence of which
little but the sound of quiet and confidential laughter interrupted
the long intervals of meditative silence.
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