| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Extracts From Adam's Diary by Mark Twain: but she is indifferent about what it is, and will not let me have
it to try. I do not understand this. The coming of the creature
seems to have changed her whole nature and made her unreasonable
about experiments. She thinks more of it than she does of any of
the other animals, but is not able to explain why. Her mind is
disordered--everything shows it. Sometimes she carries the fish
in her arms half the night when it complains and wants to get to
the water. At such times the water comes out of the places in
her face that she looks out of, and she pats the fish on the back
and makes soft sounds with her mouth to soothe it, and betrays
sorrow and solicitude in a hundred ways. I have never seen her
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tales and Fantasies by Robert Louis Stevenson: 'Here,' said he; 'go to bed. Don't mind me, John. You'll be
sorry for me when you know.'
'Wait a bit,' returned John; 'I've got so cold with all that
standing about. Let's go into the dining-room a minute.
Just one glass to warm me, Alan.'
On the table in the hall stood a glass, and a bottle with a
whisky label on a tray. It was plain the bottle had been
just opened, for the cork and corkscrew lay beside it.
'Take that,' said Alan, passing John the whisky, and then
with a certain roughness pushed his friend into the bedroom,
and closed the door behind him.
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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 Bab:A Sub-Deb, Mary Roberts Rinehart by Mary Roberts Rinehart: just pretended it was him. (He?) And it WAS."
He got up and paced the floor.
"It's a very strange case," he said. "Do you mind if I light a
cigarette? It helps to clear my brain. What was the name you gave him?"
"Harold Valentine. But he is here under another name, because of my
Familey. They think I am a mere child, you see, and so of course he
took a NOM DE PLUME."
"A NOM DE PLUME? Oh I see! What is it?"
"Grosvenor," I said. "The same as yours."
"There's another Grosvenor in the building, That's where the
trouble came in, I suppose, Now let me get this straight. You wrote
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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 Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield: lovely silver-grey, with little red saddles and blue bridles and bells
jing-a-jingling on their ears. And quite big girls--older than me, even--
were riding them, ever so gay. Not at all common, I don't mean, madam,
just enjoying themselves. And I don't know what it was, but the way the
little feet went, and the eyes--so gentle--and the soft ears--made me want
to go on a donkey more than anything in the world!
...Of course, I couldn't. I had my young ladies. And what would I have
looked like perched up there in my uniform? But all the rest of the day it
was donkeys--donkeys on the brain with me. I felt I should have burst if I
didn't tell some one; and who was there to tell? But when I went to bed--I
was sleeping in Mrs. James's bedroom, our cook that was, at the time--as
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