| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin: was covered with forests, and that it has been cleared by fire.
It is said, that by digging in the barest spots, lumps of the
kind of resin which flows from the kauri pine are frequently
found. The natives had an evident motive in clearing the
country; for the fern, formerly a staple article of food,
flourishes only in the open cleared tracks. The almost entire
absence of associated grasses, which forms so remarkable a
feature in the vegetation of this island, may perhaps be
accounted for by the land having been aboriginally covered
with forest-trees.
The soil is volcanic; in several parts we passed over
The Voyage of the Beagle |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum: they chance to live in palaces or in cottages."
"Your words are wise, fair Queen," replied Claus, "and my heart tells
me they are as just as they are wise. Hereafter all children may
claim my services."
Then he bowed before the gracious Fairy and, kissing Necile's red
lips, went back into his Valley.
At the brook he stopped to drink, and afterward he sat on the bank and
took a piece of moist clay in his hands while he thought what sort of
toy he should make for Bessie Blithesome. He did not notice that his
fingers were working the clay into shape until, glancing downward, he
found he had unconsciously formed a head that bore a slight resemblance
The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Footnote to History by Robert Louis Stevenson: strong patrol; and on his return, his party was observed and hailed
and fired on by a sentry. They ran away on all fours in the dark,
and so doing plumped upon another sentry, whom Laupepa grappled and
flung in a ditch; for the Sheet of Paper, although infirm of
character, is, like most Samoans, of an able body. The second
sentry (like the first) fired after his assailants at random in the
dark; and the two shots awoke the curiosity of Apia. On the
afternoon of the 16th, the day of the hand-shakings, Suatele, a
high chief, despatched two boys across the island with a letter.
They were most of the night upon the road; it was near three in the
morning before the sentries in the camp of Malietoa beheld their
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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 The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: charge, "that word charlatanism has come to be a damaging expression,
a middle term, as it were, between right and wrong; for where, I ask
you, does charlatanism begin? where does it end? what is charlatanism?
do me the kindness of telling me what it is NOT. Now for a little
plain speaking, the rarest social ingredient. A business which should
consist in going out at night to look for goods to sell in the day
would obviously be impossible. You find the instinct of forestalling
the market in the very match-seller. How to forestall the market--that
is the one idea of the so-called honest tradesman of the Rue Saint-
Denis, as of the most brazen-fronted speculator. If stocks are heavy,
sell you must. If sales are slow, you must tickle your customer; hence
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