| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tales of the Klondyke by Jack London: Savoy was by like a flash. Harrington pulled to his feet and
watched him skimming across the river to the Gold Recorder's. He
could not help hearing what was said.
"Ah, him do vaire well," Joy Molineau was explaining to the
lieutenant. "Him--what you call--set the pace. Yes, him set the
pace vaire well."
AT THE RAINBOW'S END
It was for two reasons that Montana Kid discarded his "chaps" and
Mexican spurs, and shook the dust of the Idaho ranges from his
feet. In the first place, the encroachments of a steady, sober,
and sternly moral civilization had destroyed the primeval status
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Contrast by Royall Tyler: with love, cheeks glowing with desire, and in the gen-
tlest modulation of voice he said: My dear Caroline, in
a few months our hands will be indissolubly united at
the altar; our hearts I feel are already so; the favours
you now grant as evidence of your affection are
favours indeed; yet, when the ceremony is once past,
what will now be received with rapture will then be
attributed to duty.
JONATHAN
Well, and what was the consequence?
JESSAMY
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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 Koran: When drowsiness covered you as a security from Him, and He sent down
upon you from the heavens water to purify you withal, and to take away
from you the plague of Satan, and to tie up your hearts and to make
firm your footsteps.
When your Lord inspired the angels- 'Verily, I am with you; make
ye firm then those who believe; I will cast dread into the hearts of
those who misbelieve,- strike off their necks then, and strike off
from them every finger tip.'
That is, because they went into opposition against God and His
Apostle; for he who goes into opposition against God and His
Apostle- verily, God is keen to punish.
The Koran |
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 Study of a Woman by Honore de Balzac: virtuous woman to have married a man incapable of follies.
Occasionally some fops have been sufficiently impertinent to press the
hand of the marquise while dancing with her. They gained nothing in
return but contemptuous glances; all were made to feel the shock of
that insulting indifference which, like a spring frost, destroys the
germs of flattering hopes. Beaux, wits, and fops, men whose sentiments
are fed by sucking their canes, those of a great name, or a great
fame, those of the highest or the lowest rank in her own world, they
all blanch before her. She has conquered the right to converse as long
and as often as she chooses with the men who seem to her agreeable,
without being entered on the tablets of gossip. Certain coquettish
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