| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Rewards and Fairies by Rudyard Kipling: to keep my spirits up, as well as to make friends with the guard.
They was only doing their duty. Outside o' that they were the
reasonablest o' God's creatures. They never even laughed at me.
So we come to Paris, by river, along in November, which the
French had christened Brumaire. They'd given new names to all
the months, and after such an outrageous silly piece o' business as
that, they wasn't likely to trouble 'emselves with my rights and
wrongs. They didn't. The barge was laid up below Notre Dame
church in charge of a caretaker, and he let me sleep aboard after I'd
run about all day from office to office, seeking justice and fair
dealing, and getting speeches concerning liberty. None heeded
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from An Episode Under the Terror by Honore de Balzac: this time the door stood open, and the two Sisters were out at the
stairhead, eager to light the way. Mademoiselle de Langeais even came
down a few steps, to meet their benefactor the sooner.
"Come," she said, with a quaver in the affectionate tones, "come in;
we are expecting you."
He raised his face, gave her a dark look, and made no answer. The
sister felt as if an icy mantle had fallen over her, and said no more.
At the sight of him, the glow of gratitude and curiosity died away in
their hearts. Perhaps he was not so cold, not so taciturn, not so
stern as he seemed to them, for in their highly wrought mood they were
ready to pour out their feeling of friendship. But the three poor
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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 An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce: followed by a sense of suffocation. Keen, poignant agonies
seemed to shoot from his neck downward through every fiber of
his body and limbs. These pains appeared to flash along well
defined lines of ramification and to beat with an
inconceivably rapid periodicity. They seemed like streams of
pulsating fire heating him to an intolerable temperature. As
to his head, he was conscious of nothing but a feeling of
fullness -- of congestion. These sensations were
unaccompanied by thought. The intellectual part of his
nature was already effaced; he had power only to feel, and
feeling was torment. He was conscious of motion.
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge |
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 Jolly Corner by Henry James: other grasp.
At present, really, the light he had set down on the mantel of the
next room would have to figure his sword; which utensil, in the
course of a minute, he had taken the requisite number of steps to
possess himself of. The door between the rooms was open, and from
the second another door opened to a third. These rooms, as he
remembered, gave all three upon a common corridor as well, but
there was a fourth, beyond them, without issue save through the
preceding. To have moved, to have heard his step again, was
appreciably a help; though even in recognising this he lingered
once more a little by the chimney-piece on which his light had
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