| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad: months, simply by playing with us, she had taught me not only to
speak French, but to read it as well. She was indeed an
excellent playmate. In the distance, half-way down to the great
gates, a light, open trap, harnessed with three horses in Russian
fashion, stood drawn up on one side, with the police captain of
the district sitting in it, the vizor of his flat cap with a red
band pulled down over his eyes.
It seems strange that he should have been there to watch our
going so carefully. Without wishing to treat with levity the
just timidites of Imperialists all the world over, I may allow
myself the reflection that a woman, practically condemned by the
A Personal Record |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen: goose, for you know it was New Year's Eve; yes, of that she thought.
In a corner formed by two houses, of which one advanced more than the other,
she seated herself down and cowered together. Her little feet she had drawn
close up to her, but she grew colder and colder, and to go home she did not
venture, for she had not sold any matches and could not bring a farthing of
money: from her father she would certainly get blows, and at home it was cold
too, for above her she had only the roof, through which the wind whistled,
even though the largest cracks were stopped up with straw and rags.
Her little hands were almost numbed with cold. Oh! a match might afford her a
world of comfort, if she only dared take a single one out of the bundle, draw
it against the wall, and warm her fingers by it. She drew one out. "Rischt!"
Fairy Tales |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane: The day had grown more white, until the sun
shed his full radiance upon the thronged forest.
A sort of a gust of battle came sweeping toward
that part of the line where lay the youth's regi-
ment. The front shifted a trifle to meet it square-
ly. There was a wait. In this part of the field
there passed slowly the intense moments that pre-
cede the tempest.
A single rifle flashed in a thicket before the
regiment. In an instant it was joined by many
others. There was a mighty song of clashes and
The Red Badge of Courage |
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 Captain Stormfield by Mark Twain: knife-grinders - a lot of people nobody ever heard of?"
"That is the heavenly justice of it - they warn't rewarded
according to their deserts, on earth, but here they get their
rightful rank. That tailor Billings, from Tennessee, wrote poetry
that Homer and Shakespeare couldn't begin to come up to; but nobody
would print it, nobody read it but his neighbors, an ignorant lot,
and they laughed at it. Whenever the village had a drunken frolic
and a dance, they would drag him in and crown him with cabbage
leaves, and pretend to bow down to him; and one night when he was
sick and nearly starved to death, they had him out and crowned him,
and then they rode him on a rail about the village, and everybody
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