| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Moral Emblems by Robert Louis Stevenson: His mates regarded him with awe.
No pirate in the whole profession
Held a more honourable position.
At length, from years of anxious toil,
Bold Robin seeks his native soil;
Wisely arranges his affairs,
And to his native dale repairs.
The Bristol SWALLOW sets him down
Beside the well-remembered town.
He sighs, he spits, he marks the scene,
Proudly he treads the village green;
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley: crying for his baba (though he never had had any baba to cry for),
he said, "Ah, this will just suit me!" though he was very tired;
and down he went, by stock and stone, sedge and ledge, bush and
rush, as if he had been born a jolly little black ape, with four
hands instead of two.
And all the while he never saw the Irishwoman coming down behind
him.
But he was getting terribly tired now. The burning sun on the
fells had sucked him up; but the damp heat of the woody crag sucked
him up still more; and the perspiration ran out of the ends of his
fingers and toes, and washed him cleaner than he had been for a
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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 The Europeans by Henry James: to believe for an instant now and then that, privately, Mr. Brand
might have faltered; and as it seemed to give more force to Felix's
words to repeat them to her father, she was waiting until she
should have taught herself to be very calm. But she had now
begun to tell Mr. Wentworth that she was extremely anxious.
She was proceeding to develop this idea, to enumerate the objects
of her anxiety, when Felix came in.
Mr. Wentworth sat there, with his legs crossed, lifting his dry,
pure countenance from the Boston "Advertiser." Felix entered smiling,
as if he had something particular to say, and his uncle looked at him
as if he both expected and deprecated this event. Felix vividly
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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 War in the Air by H. G. Wells: coast down, and so up again, and then a coast. Then as he came
swooping a quarter of a mile above a village he saw people
running about, running away--evidently in relation to his
hawk-like passage. He got an idea that he had been shot at.
"Up!" he said, and attacked that lever again. It came over with
remarkable docility, and suddenly the wings seemed to give way in
the middle. But the engine was still! It had stopped. He flung
the lever back rather by instinct than design. What to do?
Much happened in a few seconds, but also his mind was quick, he
thought very quickly. He couldn't get up again, he was gliding
down the air; he would have to hit something.
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