| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield: out, shutting the door.
What a very small cabin it was! It was like being shut up in a box with
grandma. The dark round eye above the washstand gleamed at them dully.
Fenella felt shy. She stood against the door, still clasping her luggage
and the umbrella. Were they going to get undressed in here? Already her
grandma had taken off her bonnet, and, rolling up the strings, she fixed
each with a pin to the lining before she hung the bonnet up. Her white
hair shone like silk; the little bun at the back was covered with a black
net. Fenella hardly ever saw her grandma with her head uncovered; she
looked strange.
"I shall put on the woollen fascinator your dear mother crocheted for me,"
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom by William and Ellen Craft: consent. This consent could never be obtained to
pass into a free State. My wife's being muffled in
the poultices, &c., furnished a plausible excuse for
avoiding general conversation, of which most
Yankee travellers are passionately fond.
There are a large number of free negroes residing
in the southern States; but in Georgia (and I
believe in all the slave States,) every coloured per-
son's complexion is prima facie evidence of his
being a slave; and the lowest villain in the country,
should he be a white man, has the legal power to
Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Wrecker by Stevenson & Osbourne: be the heirs of. I wish you could see my collection of tin-types;
I wish I had them here. They were taken for my own pleasure
and to be a memento; and they show Nature in her grandest as
well as her gentlest moments." As he tramped the Western
States and Territories, taking tin-types, the boy was continually
getting hold of books, good, bad, and indifferent, popular and
abstruse, from the novels of Sylvanus Cobb to Euclid's
Elements, both of which I found (to my almost equal wonder)
he had managed to peruse: he was taking stock by the way, of
the people, the products, and the country, with an eye unusually
observant and a memory unusually retentive; and he was
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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 Plain Tales from the Hills by Rudyard Kipling: never came; and the D'Silvas, Pereiras, and Ducketts lifted their
voices and mocked Honorary Lieutenant Castries as one who had been
basely imposed upon. Mrs. Hauksbee went to the wedding, and was
much astonished when Peythroppe did not appear. After seven weeks,
Peythroppe and the Three Men returned from Rajputana. Peythroppe
was in hard, tough condition, rather white, and more self-contained
than ever.
One of the Three Men had a cut on his nose, cause by the kick of a
gun. Twelve-bores kick rather curiously.
Then came Honorary Lieutenant Castries, seeking for the blood of his
perfidious son-in-law to be. He said things--vulgar and
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