| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from At the Earth's Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs: or an east or a west may I hope ever to find my way across
that vast world to the tiny spot where my lost love lies
grieving for me?
That is the story as David Innes told it to me in the
goat-skin tent upon the rim of the great Sahara Desert.
The next day he took me out to see the prospector--it
was precisely as he had described it. So huge was it
that it could have been brought to this inaccessible part
of the world by no means of transportation that existed
there--it could only have come in the way that David
Innes said it came--up through the crust of the earth
At the Earth's Core |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Professor by Charlotte Bronte: was one thing tolerably certain--I was in no danger of
encountering severe disappointment; from this, the moderation of
my expectations guaranteed me. I anticipated no overflowings of
fraternal tenderness; Edward's letters had always been such as to
prevent the engendering or harbouring of delusions of this sort.
Still, as I sat awaiting his arrival, I felt eager--very eager--I
cannot tell you why; my hand, so utterly a stranger to the grasp
of a kindred hand, clenched itself to repress the tremor with
which impatience would fain have shaken it.
"I thought of my uncles; and as I was engaged in wondering
whether Edward's indifference would equal the cold disdain I had
The Professor |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: swiftly and bitterly, in a contraction of his whole nervous
system, to discharge some temper before he returns to work. I
do not care how much or how well he works, this fellow is an
evil feature in other people's lives. They would be happier
if he were dead. They could easier do without his services in
the Circumlocution Office, than they can tolerate his
fractious spirits. He poisons life at the well-head. It is
better to be beggared out of hand by a scapegrace nephew, than
daily hag-ridden by a peevish uncle.
And what, in God's name, is all this pother about? For
what cause do they embitter their own and other people's
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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 Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson: values of them. Forby that they were baith - or they baith seemed -
earnest professors and men of comely conversation. The first of them
was just Tam Dale, my faither. The second was ane Lapraik, whom the
folk ca'd Tod Lapraik maistly, but whether for his name or his nature I
could never hear tell. Weel, Tam gaed to see Lapraik upon this
business, and took me, that was a toddlin' laddie, by the hand. Tod
had his dwallin' in the lang loan benorth the kirkyaird. It's a dark
uncanny loan, forby that the kirk has aye had an ill name since the
days o' James the Saxt and the deevil's cantrips played therein when
the Queen was on the seas; and as for Tod's house, it was in the
mirkest end, and was little liked by some that kenned the best. The
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