| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: withdrawn.
He slept, but no longer so quietly as at first. An hour's repose
had snatched, from his elastic frame, the weariness with which
many hours of toil had burdened it. Now he stirred--now, moved
his lips, without a sound--now, talked, in an inward tone, to the
noonday spectres of his dream. But a noise of wheels came
rattling louder and louder along the road, until it dashed
through the dispersing mist of David's slumber-and there was the
stage-coach. He started up with all his ideas about him.
"Halloo, driver!--Take a passenger?" shouted he.
"Room on top!" answered the driver.
Twice Told Tales |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn: him very comfortable thus. He took his meals with the family,
spent most of the day in his own quarters, spoke very little, and
lived so unobtrusively and inconspicuously that his presence in
the settlement was felt scarcely more than that of some dumb
creature,--some domestic animal,--some humble pet whose relation
to the family is only fully comprehended after it has failed to
appear for several days in its accustomed place of patient
waiting,--and we know that it is dead.
IV.
Persistently and furiously, at half-past two o'clock of an August
morning, Sparicio rang Dr. La Brierre's night-bell. He had
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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 Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: that both are the children of convention.
The person, man or dog, who has a conscience is eternally condemned
to some degree of humbug; the sense of the law in their members
fatally precipitates either towards a frozen and affected bearing.
And the converse is true; and in the elaborate and conscious
manners of the dog, moral opinions and the love of the ideal stand
confessed. To follow for ten minutes in the street some
swaggering, canine cavalier, is to receive a lesson in dramatic art
and the cultured conduct of the body; in every act and gesture you
see him true to a refined conception; and the dullest cur,
beholding him, pricks up his ear and proceeds to imitate and parody
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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 An Unsocial Socialist by George Bernard Shaw: returned alone to the chalet, where he was received by the two
policemen who subsequently brought him to the college.
CHAPTER VI
The year wore on, and the long winter evenings set in. The
studious young ladies at Alton College, elbows on desk and hands
over ears, shuddered chillily in fur tippets whilst they loaded
their memories with the statements of writers on moral science,
or, like men who swim upon corks, reasoned out mathematical
problems upon postulates. Whence it sometimes happened that the
more reasonable a student was in mathematics, the more
unreasonable she was in the affairs of real life, concerning
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