| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Wyoming by William MacLeod Raine: "It's a woman--a spinster. She's coming to help Mrs. Winslow.
Inquire for Miss Darling. She isn't used to jolting two days in a
rig, but I know you will be careful of her."
"I'll surely be as careful of the old lady as if she was my own
mother."
The mistress of the ranch smothered a desire to laugh.
"I'm sure you will. At her age she may need a good deal of care.
Be certain you take rug enough."
"I'll take care of her the best I know how. expect she's likely
rheumatic, but I'll wrop her up till she looks like a Cheyenne
squaw when tourist is trying to get a free shoot at her with
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Almayer's Folly by Joseph Conrad: silently, he swallowed a few mouthfuls of water that lapped about
his lips. This did him good, and he walked with greater
confidence in himself and others as he returned towards the fire.
Had he been betrayed by Lakamba all would have been over by this.
He made up a big blaze, and while it lasted dried himself, and
then lay down by the embers. He could not sleep, but he felt a
great numbness in all his limbs. His restlessness was gone, and
he was content to lay still, measuring the time by watching the
stars that rose in endless succession above the forests, while
the slight puffs of wind under the cloudless sky seemed to fan
their twinkle into a greater brightness. Dreamily he assured
Almayer's Folly |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Black Dwarf by Walter Scott: regarded, with justice, as their oppressors; and the intrigues of
the period presented the strange picture of papists, prelatists,
and presbyterians, caballing among themselves against the English
government, out of a common feeling that their country had been
treated with injustice. The fermentation was universal; and, as
the population of Scotland had been generally trained to arms,
under the act of security, they were not indifferently prepared
for war, and waited but the declaration of some of the nobility
to break out into open hostility. It was at this period of
public confusion that our story opens.
The cleugh, or wild ravine, into which Hobbie Elliot had followed
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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 Sophist by Plato: not-beautiful not-beautiful, in the same manner not-being has been found to
be and is not-being, and is to be reckoned one among the many classes of
being. Do you, Theaetetus, still feel any doubt of this?
THEAETETUS: None whatever.
STRANGER: Do you observe that our scepticism has carried us beyond the
range of Parmenides' prohibition?
THEAETETUS: In what?
STRANGER: We have advanced to a further point, and shown him more than he
forbad us to investigate.
THEAETETUS: How is that?
STRANGER: Why, because he says--
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