| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Plain Tales from the Hills by Rudyard Kipling: the two. Yet I am not certain. You are--forgive my saying so even
while I am smoking your excellent tobacco--painfully ignorant of
many things."
We were sitting together on the edge of his bedstead, for he owned
no chairs, watching the horses being watered for the night, while
the native woman was preparing dinner. I did not like being
patronized by a loafer, but I was his guest for the time being,
though he owned only one very torn alpaca-coat and a pair of
trousers made out of gunny-bags. He took the pipe out of his mouth,
and went on judicially:--"All things considered, I doubt whether you
are the luckier. I do not refer to your extremely limited classical
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Roads of Destiny by O. Henry: A talkative bird he was, full of most marvellous loud tales and
exploits, and speaking a language at times obscure but never
colourless. He was a new sensation to Bud King's men, who rarely
encountered new types. They hung, delighted, upon his vainglorious
boasting, the spicy strangeness of his lingo, his contemptuous
familiarity with life, the world, and remote places, and the
extravagant frankness with which he conveyed his sentiments.
To their guest the band of outlaws seemed to be nothing more than a
congregation of country bumpkins whom he was "stringing for grub" just
as he would have told his stories at the back door of a farmhouse to
wheedle a meal. And, indeed, his ignorance was not without excuse, for
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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 On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau: pipe there; and so a barn was burnt. He had the reputation
of being a clever man, had been there some three months
waiting for his trial to come on, and would have to wait as
much longer; but he was quite domesticated and contented,
since he got his board for nothing, and thought that he was
well treated.
He occupied one window, and I the other; and I saw that
if one stayed there long, his principal business would be to
look out the window. I had soon read all the tracts that
were left there, and examined where former prisoners had
broken out, and where a grate had been sawed off, and heard
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience |
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 Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin by Robert Louis Stevenson: violence of temper. She had three sons and one daughter. Two of
the sons went utterly to ruin, and reduced their mother to poverty.
The third went to India, a slim, delicate lad, and passed so wholly
from the knowledge of his relatives that he was thought to be long
dead. Years later, when his sister was living in Genoa, a red-
bearded man of great strength and stature, tanned by years in
India, and his hands covered with barbaric gems, entered the room
unannounced, as she was playing the piano, lifted her from her
seat, and kissed her. It was her brother, suddenly returned out of
a past that was never very clearly understood, with the rank of
general, many strange gems, many cloudy stories of adventure, and
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