| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Burning Daylight by Jack London: all its plant. The Guggenhammers bid highest, and the price they
paid netted Daylight a clean million. It was current rumor that
he was worth anywhere from twenty to thirty millions. But he
alone knew just how he stood, and that, with his last claim sold
and the table swept clean of his winnings, he had ridden his
hunch to the tune of just a trifle over eleven millions.
His departure was a thing that passed into the history of the
Yukon along with his other deeds. All the Yukon was his guest,
Dawson the seat of the festivity. On that one last night no
man's dust save his own was good. Drinks were not to be
purchased. Every saloon ran open, with extra relays of exhausted
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Faraday as a Discoverer by John Tyndall: Whilst an apprentice, I, for amusement, learnt a little chemistry
and other parts of philosophy, and felt an eager desire to proceed
in that way further. After being a journeyman for six months,
under a disagreeable master, I gave up my business, and through
the interest of a Sir H. Davy, filled the situation of chemical
assistant to the Royal Institution of Great Britain, in which office
I now remain; and where I am constantly employed in observing the
works of nature, and tracing the manner in which she directs the
order and arrangement of the world. I have lately had proposals
made to me by Sir Humphry Davy to accompany him in his travels
through Europe and Asia, as philosophical assistant. If I go at all
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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 Selected Writings of Guy De Maupassant by Guy De Maupassant: On seeing me, she took to flight. But I called after her saying:
'Come here, come here, Mademoiselle, I have a nice little picture
for you.'
"She came forward, though with seeming reluctance. I handed her
my sketch. She said nothing, but stood for a long time
motionless, looking at it. Suddenly she burst into tears. She
wept spasmodically, like men who have been struggling hard
against shedding tears, but who can do so no longer, and abandon
themselves to grief, though unwillingly. I got up, trembling,
moved myself by the sight of a sorrow I did not comprehend, and I
took her by the hand with a gesture of brusque affection, a true
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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 Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: worse than the bad elder son with whom (as it was then meant)
he was to visit Scotland; if I took an Irishman, and a very
bad Irishman, in the midst of the eighteenth century, how was
I to evade Barry Lyndon? The wretch besieged me, offering
his services; he gave me excellent references; he proved that
he was highly fitted for the work I had to do; he, or my own
evil heart, suggested it was easy to disguise his ancient
livery wit a little lace and a few frogs and buttons, so that
Thackeray himself should hardly recognise him. And then of a
sudden there came to me memories of a young Irishman, with
whom I was once intimate, and had spent long nights walking
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