| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: The first he must have read for twenty years uninterruptedly,
keeping it near him in his study, and carrying it in his bag on
journeys. Another old theologian, Brown of Wamphray, was often in
his hands. When he was indisposed, he had two books, GUY MANNERING
and THE PARENT'S ASSISTANT, of which he never wearied. He was a
strong Conservative, or, as he preferred to call himself, a Tory;
except in so far as his views were modified by a hot-headed
chivalrous sentiment for women. He was actually in favour of a
marriage law under which any woman might have a divorce for the
asking, and no man on any ground whatever; and the same sentiment
found another expression in a Magdalen Mission in Edinburgh,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Facino Cane by Honore de Balzac: tracking down his misfortunes, looking for the reasons of the deep
moral and physical degradation out of which the lately revived sparks
of greatness and nobility shone so much the more brightly. My ideas,
no doubt, were passing through his mind, for all processes of thought-
communications are far more swift, I think, in blind people, because
their blindness compels them to concentrate their attention. I had not
long to wait for proof that we were in sympathy in this way. Facino
Cane left off playing, and came up to me. "Let us go out!" he said;
his tones thrilled through me like an electric shock. I gave him my
arm, and we went.
Outside in the street he said, "Will you take me back to Venice? Will
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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 Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy: noiseless that he did not hear her. When she came close she could
see his lips moving unconsciously, as to some impassioned
visionary theme.
She spoke, and Fitzpiers started. "What are you looking at?" she
asked.
"Oh! I was contemplating our old place of Buckbury, in my idle
way," he said.
It had seemed to her that he was looking much to the right of that
cradle and tomb of his ancestral dignity; but she made no further
observation, and taking his arm walked home beside him almost in
silence. She did not know that Middleton Abbey lay in the
The Woodlanders |
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 Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: the degree of passion, and it took all the steering I had in me to
keep even a decently straight course through a single field.
While I was thus desperately tacking through the bog, children and
cattle began to disperse, until only a pair of girls remained
behind. From these I sought direction on my path. The peasantry
in general were but little disposed to counsel a wayfarer. One old
devil simply retired into his house, and barricaded the door on my
approach; and I might beat and shout myself hoarse, he turned a
deaf ear. Another, having given me a direction which, as I found
afterwards, I had misunderstood, complacently watched me going
wrong without adding a sign. He did not care a stalk of parsley if
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