| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Betty Zane by Zane Grey: of the pleasantest kind. He regretted that he lowered himself so far as to
fight with a man little better than an outlaw. Still there was a grim
satisfaction in the thought of the blow he had given Miller. He remembered he
had asked for a knife and that his enemy and he be permitted to fight to the
death. After all to have ended, then and there, the feud between them would
have been the better course; for he well knew Miller's desperate character,
that he had killed more than one white man, and that now a fair fight might
not be possible. Well, he thoughts what did it matter? He was not going to
worry himself. He did not care much, one way or another. He had no home; he
could not make one without the woman he loved. He was a Soldier of Fortune; he
was at the mercy of Fate, and he would drift along and let what came be
Betty Zane |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: with, human reason, but by the accumulation of innumerable slight
variations, each good for the individual possessor. Nevertheless, this
difficulty, though appearing to our imagination insuperably great, cannot
be considered real if we admit the following propositions, namely,--that
gradations in the perfection of any organ or instinct, which we may
consider, either do now exist or could have existed, each good of its
kind,--that all organs and instincts are, in ever so slight a degree,
variable,--and, lastly, that there is a struggle for existence leading to
the preservation of each profitable deviation of structure or instinct.
The truth of these propositions cannot, I think, be disputed.
It is, no doubt, extremely difficult even to conjecture by what gradations
On the Origin of Species |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin by Robert Louis Stevenson: electricity at Chatham, his chair at the London University, his
partnership with Sir William Thomson and Mr. Varley in many
ingenious patents, his growing credit with engineers and men of
science; and he is to bear in mind that of all this activity and
acquist of reputation, the immediate profit was scanty. Soon after
his marriage, Fleeming had left the service of Messrs. Liddell &
Gordon, and entered into a general engineering partnership with
Mr. Forde, a gentleman in a good way of business. It was a
fortunate partnership in this, that the parties retained their
mutual respect unlessened and separated with regret; but men's
affairs, like men, have their times of sickness, and by one of
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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 Moral Emblems by Robert Louis Stevenson: At length, intolerant of trammels -
Wild as the wild Bithynian camels,
Wild as the wild sea-eagles - Bob
His widowed dam contrives to rob,
And thus with great originality
Effectuates his personality.
Thenceforth his terror-haunted flight
He follows through the starry night;
And with the early morning breeze,
Behold him on the azure seas.
The master of a trading dandy
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