| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: my own, and seek in the future to make a better profit of the life
you have renewed me. - I am, my dear sir, gratefully yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN
[SAN FRANCISCO, APRIL 1880.]
MY DEAR COLVIN, - You must be sick indeed of my demand for books,
for you have seemingly not yet sent me one. Still, I live on
promises: waiting for Penn, for H. James's HAWTHORNE, for my
BURNS, etc.; and now, to make matters worse, pending your
CENTURIES, etc., I do earnestly desire the best book about
mythology (if it be German, so much the worse; send a bunctionary
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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 Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: The young mule's teeth snapped, and I heard him say something
about not being afraid of any beefy old bullock in the world. But
the bullocks only clicked their horns together and went on
chewing.
"Now, don't be angry after you've been afraid. That's the
worst kind of cowardice," said the troop-horse. "Anybody can be
forgiven for being scared in the night, I think, if they see
things they don't understand. We've broken out of our pickets,
again and again, four hundred and fifty of us, just because a new
recruit got to telling tales of whip snakes at home in Australia
till we were scared to death of the loose ends of our head-ropes."
The Jungle Book |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Man of Business by Honore de Balzac: debtors' prison, led the conversation to take this particular turn;
and from debtors' prisons they went to debts.
It was midnight. They had broken up into little knots round the table
and before the fire, and gave themselves up to the burlesque fun which
is only possible or comprehensible in Paris and in that particular
region which is bounded by the Faubourg Montmartre, the Rue Chaussee
d'Antin, the upper end of the Rue de Navarin and the line of the
boulevards.
In ten minutes' time they had come to an end of all the deep
reflections, all the moralizings, small and great, all the bad puns
made on a subject already exhausted by Rabelais three hundred 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 Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield: "Roo-coo-coo-coo! Roo-coo-coo-coo!" sounded from the veranda. "Reggie,
Reggie," from the garden.
He stopped, he turned. But when she saw his timid, puzzled look, she gave
a little laugh.
"Come back, Mr. Dove," said Anne. And Reginald came slowly across the
lawn.
5. THE YOUNG GIRL.
In her blue dress, with her cheeks lightly flushed, her blue, blue eyes,
and her gold curls pinned up as though for the first time--pinned up to be
out of the way for her flight--Mrs. Raddick's daughter might have just
dropped from this radiant heaven. Mrs. Raddick's timid, faintly
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