| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson: pleased, sent forth his clerk of an errand, and shut to the house-door
behind him.
"Now, sir," said he, returning, "speak out your mind and fear nothing;
though before you begin," he cries out, "I tell you mine misgives me!
I tell you beforehand, ye're either a Stewart or a Stewart sent ye. A
good name it is, and one it would ill-become my father's son to
lightly. But I begin to grue at the sound of it."
"My name is called Balfour," said I, "David Balfour of Shaws. As for
him that sent me, I will let his token speak." And I showed the silver
button.
"Put it in your pocket, sir!" cries he. "Ye need name no names. The
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: flowers than these--flowers that could bless you for having blessed
them, and will love you for having loved them; flowers that have
thoughts like yours, and lives like yours; and which, once saved,
you save for ever? Is this only a little power? Far among the
moorlands and the rocks,--far in the darkness of the terrible
streets,--these feeble florets are lying, with all their fresh
leaves torn, and their stems broken: will you never go down to
them, nor set them in order in their little fragrant beds, nor fence
them in their trembling, from the fierce wind? Shall morning follow
morning, for you, but not for them; and the dawn rise to watch, far
away, those frantic Dances of Death; {28} but no dawn rise to
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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 A House of Pomegranates by Oscar Wilde: and understood not why he was glad.
And after that he had opened the tabernacle, and incensed the
monstrance that was in it, and shown the fair wafer to the people,
and hid it again behind the veil of veils, he began to speak to the
people, desiring to speak to them of the wrath of God. But the
beauty of the white flowers troubled him, and their odour was sweet
in his nostrils, and there came another word into his lips, and he
spake not of the wrath of God, but of the God whose name is Love.
And why he so spake, he knew not.
And when he had finished his word the people wept, and the Priest
went back to the sacristy, and his eyes were full of tears. And
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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 Turn of the Screw by Henry James: "What did you take it for?"
"To see what you said about me."
"You opened the letter?"
"I opened it."
My eyes were now, as I held him off a little again,
on Miles's own face, in which the collapse of mockery
showed me how complete was the ravage of uneasiness.
What was prodigious was that at last, by my success,
his sense was sealed and his communication stopped:
he knew that he was in presence, but knew not of what,
and knew still less that I also was and that I did know.
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