| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The House of Dust by Conrad Aiken: Before him, numberless lovers smiled and talked.
And death was observed with sudden cries,
And birth with laughter and pain.
And the trees grew taller and blacker against the skies
And night came down again.
IV.
Up high black walls, up sombre terraces,
Clinging like luminous birds to the sides of cliffs,
The yellow lights went climbing towards the sky.
From high black walls, gleaming vaguely with rain,
Each yellow light looked down like a golden eye.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini: - he wore the rosiest spectacles that morning - of a change of
opinion, of a more moderate note. The Nation began to perceive
whither this lawyer rabble was leading it. He pulled out "The Acts
of the Apostles" and read a stinging paragraph. Then, when
mademoiselle at last made her appearance, he resigned the journal
into the hands of M. de Kercadiou.
M. de Kercadiou, with his niece's future to consider, went to read
the paper in the garden, taking up there a position whence he could
keep the couple within sight - as his obligations seemed to demand
of him - whilst being discreetly out of earshot.
The Marquis made the most of an opportunity that might be brief.
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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 The Call of the Wild by Jack London: lift and his ears cock up, intent and listening, and he would
spring to his feet and dash away, and on and on, for hours,
through the forest aisles and across the open spaces where the
niggerheads bunched. He loved to run down dry watercourses, and
to creep and spy upon the bird life in the woods. For a day at a
time he would lie in the underbrush where he could watch the
partridges drumming and strutting up and down. But especially he
loved to run in the dim twilight of the summer midnights,
listening to the subdued and sleepy murmurs of the forest, reading
signs and sounds as man may read a book, and seeking for the
mysterious something that called--called, waking or sleeping, at
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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 Psychology of Revolution by Gustave le Bon: The middle classes had increased in capacity and wealth, to the
point of surpassing the nobility. Although they mingled with the
nobles more and more, they felt, none the less, that they were
held at a distance, and this they keenly resented. This frame of
mind had unconsciously made the bourgeoisie keen supporters of
the philosophic doctrine of equality.
Wounded self-love and jealousy were thus the causes of
hatreds that we can scarcely conceive today, when the social
influence of the nobility is so small. Many members of the
Convention--Carrier, Marat, and others--remembered with anger
that they had once occupied subordinate positions in the
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