| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Roads of Destiny by O. Henry: allegiance to take without any kind of a chaser:
"'I, Barnard O'Keefe, Yank, being of sound body but a Republican mind,
hereby swear to transfer my fealty, respect, and allegiance to the
Confederate States of America, and the government thereof in
consideration of said government, through its official acts and
powers, obtaining my freedom and release from confinement and sentence
of death brought about by the exuberance of my Irish proclivities and
my general pizenness as a Yank.'
"I repeated these words after Doc, but they seemed to me a kind of
hocus-pocus; and I don't believe any life-insurance company in the
world would have issued me a policy on the strength of 'em.
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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 Human Drift by Jack London: because we tried it and slaughtered our hands. Now a sailor hates
to lose an anchor. It is a matter of pride. Of course, we could
have buoyed ours and slipped it. Instead, however, I gave her
still more hawser, veered her, and dropped the second anchor.
There was little sleep after that, for first one and then the
other of us would be rolled out of our bunks. The increasing size
of the seas told us we were dragging, and when we struck the
scoured channel we could tell by the feel of it that our two
anchors were fairly skating across. It was a deep channel, the
farther edge of it rising steeply like the wall of a canyon, and
when our anchors started up that wall they hit in and held.
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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 House of Mirth by Edith Wharton: piece. The lines in her face came out terribly--she looked
old; and when a girl looks old to herself, how does she look
to other people? She moved away, and began to wander
aimlessly about the room, fitting her steps with mechanical
precision between the monstrous roses of Mrs. Peniston's
Axminster. Suddenly she noticed that the pen with which she
had written to Selden still rested against the uncovered
inkstand. She seated herself again, and taking out an envelope,
addressed it rapidly to Rosedale. Then she laid out a sheet of
paper, and sat over it with suspended pen. It had been easy
enough to write the date, and "Dear Mr. Rosedale"--but after that
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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 Lock and Key Library by Julian Hawthorne, Ed.: through me he had lost his reputation, his friends, his career, his
country, the woman he loved, his hopes for the future; through me,
above all, that the burden of that horrible death would lie for
ever on his soul. He was lashing himself to fury with his own
words as he spoke; and I stood leaning against the wall opposite to
him, cold, dumb, unresisting, when suddenly my father interrupted.
I think that both Jack and I had forgotten his presence; but at the
sound of his voice, changed from what we had ever heard it, we
turned to him, and I then for the first time saw in his face the
death-look which never afterwards quitted it.
"'Stop, Jack,' he said; 'Alan is not to blame; and if it had not
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