| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Soul of a Bishop by H. G. Wells: with the thing in his mind.
He turned at last with an effort. He carried the little phial
to his bedside, and into the tumbler of his water-bottle he let
the drops fall, drop by drop, until he had counted twenty. Then
holding it to the bulb of his reading lamp he added the water and
stood watching the slow pearly eddies in the mixture mingle into
an opalescent uniformity. He replaced the water-bottle and stood
with the glass in his hand. But he did not drink.
He was afraid.
He knew that he had only to drink and this world of confusion
would grow transparent, would roll back and reveal the great
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland by Olive Schreiner: matter there is no path but one on which light shines.'
"And she said, 'You are very unkind; you don't care what the people say
about us!' and she wept bitterly, and went out of the room. But as soon as
the door was shut, she dried her tears; and she said to herself, 'Now he
will never dare to preach such a sermon again. He dares never oppose me
when once I have set down my foot.'
"And the man spoke to no one, and went out alone in the veld. All the
afternoon he walked up and down among the sand and low bushes; and I walked
there beside him.
"And when the evening came, he went back to his chapel. Many were absent,
but the elders sat in their places, and his wife also was there. And the
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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 Stories From the Old Attic by Robert Harris: build a rocket sled, crisscross the countryside with pneumatic tubes,
use fast horses stimulated by strong coffee, borrow a dragster from
the sports arena, set up a reliable airline, make a jet-powered
conveyor belt, or just use ordinary mailmen under the threat of
immediate, violent death if they delayed the mail.
However, Sir Reginald, the young, handsome hero of this tale, out of
the goodness of his heart, his love for the king, and the excitement
of the challenge (and scarcely considering the money or the girl more
than four or five hours a day), decided to take a few minutes to
examine the problem before he tried to solve it.
"Just what is it the king wants to do?" he asked himself. "He wants
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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 Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: next to hand. Thus we made ready for fight; but all this while we
kept out to sea, with wind enough, and could see the boats at a
distance, being five large longboats, following us with all the
sail they could make.
Two of those boats (which by our glasses we could see were English)
outsailed the rest, were near two leagues ahead of them, and gained
upon us considerably, so that we found they would come up with us;
upon which we fired a gun without ball, to intimate that they
should bring to: and we put out a flag of truce, as a signal for
parley: but they came crowding after us till within shot, when we
took in our white flag, they having made no answer to it, and hung
Robinson Crusoe |
