| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Moran of the Lady Letty by Frank Norris: had snared quail; the sand spit with its whitened whale's skull,
where he and Moran had beached the schooner; and there, last of
all, that spot of black over which still hung a haze of brown-gray
smoke, the charred ruins of the old Portuguese whaling-cabin,
where they had outfought the beach-combers.
For a moment Wilbur and Moran looked back without speaking. They
stood on the quarter-deck; in the shadow of the main-sail, shut
off from the sight of the schooner's crew, and for the instant
quite alone.
"Well, Moran, it's good-by to the old places, isn't it?" said
Wilbur at length.
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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 Lesser Bourgeoisie by Honore de Balzac: "But am I in friendly hands? For, to tell you the truth, little aunt,
I have not been able to conceal from myself that you have, for some
time past, changed very much to me."
"Changed to you! What change do you see in me, addled-pate that you
are?"
"Oh! nothing very tangible," said la Peyrade; "but ever since that
Countess Torna has had a footing in your house--"
"My poor boy, the countess has done me many services, and I am very
grateful to her; but is that any reason why I should be false to you,
who have done us still greater services?"
"But you must admit," said la Peyrade, craftily, "that she has told
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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 Edingburgh Picturesque Notes by Robert Louis Stevenson: These little craft of air are at home in all the world,
so long as they cruise in their own element; and, like
sailors, ask but food and water from the shores they
coast.
Below, over a stream, the road passes Bow Bridge,
now a dairy-farm, but once a distillery of whisky. It
chanced, some time in the past century, that the
distiller was on terms of good-fellowship with the
visiting officer of excise. The latter was of an easy,
friendly disposition, and a master of convivial arts.
Now and again, he had to walk out of Edinburgh to measure
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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 De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: heart against the world, I would gladly and readily beg my bread
from door to door. If I got nothing from the house of the rich I
would get something at the house of the poor. Those who have much
are often greedy; those who have little always share. I would not
a bit mind sleeping in the cool grass in summer, and when winter
came on sheltering myself by the warm close-thatched rick, or under
the penthouse of a great barn, provided I had love in my heart.
The external things of life seem to me now of no importance at all.
You can see to what intensity of individualism I have arrived - or
am arriving rather, for the journey is long, and 'where I walk
there are thorns.'
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