| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Dracula by Bram Stoker: Helsing made a sub-cutaneous injection of morphia, as before,
and with good effect. Her faint became a profound slumber.
The Professor watched whilst I went downstairs with Quincey Morris,
and sent one of the maids to pay off one of the cabmen
who were waiting.
I left Quincey lying down after having a glass of wine,
and told the cook to get ready a good breakfast. Then a thought
struck me, and I went back to the room where Lucy now was.
When I came softly in, I found Van Helsing with a sheet
or two of note paper in his hand. He had evidently read it,
and was thinking it over as he sat with his hand to his brow.
Dracula |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Horse's Tale by Mark Twain: life, and I learned a lot of words of the language, and next day BB
took me to the camp out on the Plains, four miles, and I had
another good time and got acquainted with some more Indians and
dogs; and the big chief, by the name of White Cloud, gave me a
pretty little bow and arrows and I gave him my red sash-ribbon, and
in four days I could shoot very well with it and beat any white boy
of my size at the post; and I have been to those camps plenty of
times since; and I have learned to ride, too, BB taught me, and
every day he practises me and praises me, and every time I do
better than ever he lets me have a scamper on Soldier Boy, and
THAT'S the last agony of pleasure! for he is the charmingest horse,
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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 Some Reminiscences by Joseph Conrad: been my schoolfellows and playmates, but not one of them, girls
or boys, that I know of has ever written a novel. One or two
were older than myself--considerably older, too. One of them, a
visitor I remember in my early years, was the man who first put
me on horseback, and his four-horse bachelor turn-out, his
perfect horsemanship and general skill in manly exercises was one
of my earliest admirations. I seem to remember my mother looking
on from a colonnade in front of the dining-room windows as I was
lifted upon the pony, held, for all I know, by the very Joseph--
the groom attached specially to my grandmother's service--who
died of cholera. It was certainly a young man in a dark blue,
Some Reminiscences |
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 Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon: severely. The legislator further provided his pastor with a body of
youths in the prime of life, and bearing whips,[7] to inflict
punishment when necessary, with this happy result that in Sparta
modesty and obedience ever go hand in hand, nor is there lack of
either.
[4] = "boyherd."
[5] Cf. Plut. "Lycurg." 17 (Clough, i. 107); Aristot. "Pol." iv. 15,
13; vii. 17, 5.
[6] Or, "assemble the boys in flocks."
[7] {mastigophoroi} = "flagellants."
Instead of softening their feet with shoe or sandal, his rule was to
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