| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Door in the Wall, et. al. by H. G. Wells: "Unformed mind!" he said. "Got no senses yet! They little
know they've been insulting their Heaven-sent King and master . .
. . .
"I see I must bring them to reason.
"Let me think.
"Let me think."
He was still thinking when the sun set.
Nunez had an eye for all beautiful things, and it seemed to
him that the glow upon the snow-fields and glaciers that rose about
the valley on every side was the most beautiful thing he had ever
seen. His eyes went from that inaccessible glory to the village
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte: like her, after infancy was past; and I vexed her frequently by
trying to bring down her arrogance: she never took an aversion to
me, though. She had a wondrous constancy to old attachments: even
Heathcliff kept his hold on her affections unalterably; and young
Linton, with all his superiority, found it difficult to make an
equally deep impression. He was my late master: that is his
portrait over the fireplace. It used to hang on one side, and his
wife's on the other; but hers has been removed, or else you might
see something of what she was. Can you make that out?
Mrs. Dean raised the candle, and I discerned a soft-featured face,
exceedingly resembling the young lady at the Heights, but more
Wuthering Heights |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: with her own great blasting tools of sun and rain, labouring
together at the ruin of that proud mountain. The view up the
canyon was a glimpse of devastation; dry red minerals sliding
together, here and there a crag, here and there dwarf thicket
clinging in the general glissade, and over all a broken
outline trenching on the blue of heaven. Downwards indeed,
from our rock eyrie, we behold the greener side of nature;
and the bearing of the pines and the sweet smell of bays and
nutmegs commanded themselves gratefully to our senses. One
way and another, now the die was cast. Silverado be it!
After we had got back to the Toll House, the Jews were not
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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 Apology by Plato: year--of the Eleven? Or shall the penalty be a fine, and imprisonment
until the fine is paid? There is the same objection. I should have to lie
in prison, for money I have none, and cannot pay. And if I say exile (and
this may possibly be the penalty which you will affix), I must indeed be
blinded by the love of life, if I am so irrational as to expect that when
you, who are my own citizens, cannot endure my discourses and words, and
have found them so grievous and odious that you will have no more of them,
others are likely to endure me. No indeed, men of Athens, that is not very
likely. And what a life should I lead, at my age, wandering from city to
city, ever changing my place of exile, and always being driven out! For I
am quite sure that wherever I go, there, as here, the young men will flock
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