| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Ebb-Tide by Stevenson & Osbourne: suppliant's petitions, which he listened to some while in a very
mingled mood of humour and pity: and it was only when his
own name began to occur and to be conjoined with epithets,
that he at last laid his hand on the captain's shoulder.
'Sorry to interrupt the exercise,' said he; 'but I want you to
look at the Farallone.'
The captain scrambled to his feet, and stood gasping and
staring. 'Mr Herrick, don't startle a man like that!' he said. 'I
don't seem someways rightly myself since . . .' he broke off.
'What did you say anyway? O, the Farallone,' and he looked
languidly out.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: ears. But there was no joy in that shouting. Twelve men stood
in two lines six a side. Between them and overhead ran the
railway of death that had nearly shunted me through the window.
Each man carried a knife, the sleeves of his shirt were cut off
at the elbows, and from bosom to heel he was blood-red.
Beyond this perspective was a column of steam, and beyond that
was where I worked my awe-struck way, unwilling to touch beam or
wall. The atmosphere was stifling as a night in the rains by
reason of the steam and the crowd. I climbed to the beginning of
things and, perched upon a narrow beam, overlooked very nearly
all the pigs ever bred in Wisconsin. They had just been shot out
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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 Island Nights' Entertainments by Robert Louis Stevenson: like the mouth of a harbour; and the tide, which was then flowing,
took him up and carried him through. One minute he was without,
and the next within: had floated there in a wide shallow water,
bright with ten thousand stars, and all about him was the ring of
the land, with its string of palm trees. And he was amazed,
because this was a kind of island he had never heard of.
The time of Keola in that place was in two periods - the period
when he was alone, and the period when he was there with the tribe.
At first he sought everywhere and found no man; only some houses
standing in a hamlet, and the marks of fires. But the ashes of the
fires were cold and the rains had washed them away; and the winds
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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 The Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart: would get nothing from him to incriminate David.
But he had a moment, too, when surrender seemed to him not strength
but weakness; where its sheer supineness, its easy solution to his
problem revolted him, where he clenched his fist and looked at it,
and longed for the right to fight his way out.
When smoke began to issue from the cook-house chimney he stirred,
rose and went back. He ate no breakfast, and the men, seeing his
squared jaw and set face, let him alone. e worked with the strength
of three men that day, but that night, when the foreman offered him
a job as pacer, with double wages, he refused it.
"Give it to somebody else, Joe," he said. "I'm quitting."
The Breaking Point |
