| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: did no smile of welcome brighten upon his face? She was come, the
maid whose soul, according to the old and beautiful idea, had
been severed from his own, and whom, in all his vague but
passionate desires, he yearned to meet. Her, only, could he love
with a perfect love; him, only, could she receive into the depths
of her heart; and now her image was faintly blushing in the
fountain, by his side; should it pass away, its happy lustre
would never gleam upon his life again.
"How sound he sleeps!" murmured the girl.
She departed, but did not trip along the road so lightly as when
she came.
Twice Told Tales |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Wrecker by Stevenson & Osbourne: Well, well, it's past mending; I don't want to whine. But,
Loudon, I do want to live. No more ambition; all I ask is life. I
have so much to make it sweet to me! I am clerking, and
USELESS AT THAT. I know I would have fired such a clerk
inside of forty minutes, in MY time. But my time's over. I can
only cling on to you. Don't fail
"JIM PINKERTON."
There was yet one more postscript, yet one more outburst of
self-pity and pathetic adjuration; and a doctor's opinion,
unpromising enough, was besides enclosed. I pass them both
in silence. I think shame to have shown, at so great length, the
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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 Madame Firmiani by Honore de Balzac: action. Her dark eyes told of inward peace; the lines of her face were
so noble, the profile so pure, and the passion he had come to
investigate seemed so little to oppress her heart, that the old man
said to himself, while noting all the promises of love and virtue
given by that adorable countenance, "My nephew is committing some
folly."
Madame Firmiani acknowledged to twenty-five. But the Practicals proved
that having married the invisible Firmiani (then a highly respectable
individual in the forties) in 1813, at the age of sixteen, she must be
at least twenty-eight in 1825. However the same persons also asserted
that at no period of her life had she ever been so desirable or so
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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 Man against the Sky by Edwin Arlington Robinson: Has made him a still man; and he has dreams
Were fair to think on once, and all found hollow.
He knows how much of what men paint themselves
Would blister in the light of what they are;
He sees how much of what was great now shares
An eminence transformed and ordinary;
He knows too much of what the world has hushed
In others, to be loud now for himself;
He knows now at what height low enemies
May reach his heart, and high friends let him fall;
But what not even such as he may know
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