| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Princess by Alfred Tennyson: Then those eight mighty daughters of the plough
Bent their broad faces toward us and addressed
Their motion: twice I sought to plead my cause,
But on my shoulder hung their heavy hands,
The weight of destiny: so from her face
They pushed us, down the steps, and through the court,
And with grim laughter thrust us out at gates.
We crossed the street and gained a petty mound
Beyond it, whence we saw the lights and heard the voices murmuring. While I listened, came
On a sudden the weird seizure and the doubt:
I seemed to move among a world of ghosts;
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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 Octopus by Frank Norris: gophers themselves were everywhere. Occasionally a jack rabbit
bounded across the open, from one growth of chaparral to another,
taking long leaps, his ears erect. High overhead, a hawk or two
swung at anchor, and once, with a startling rush of wings, a
covey of quail flushed from the brush at the side of the trail.
On the hillsides, in thinly scattered groups were the cattle,
grazing deliberately, working slowly toward the water-holes for
their evening drink, the horses keeping to themselves, the colts
nuzzling at their mothers' bellies, whisking their tails,
stamping their unshod feet. But once in a remoter field,
solitary, magnificent, enormous, the short hair curling tight
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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 Lock and Key Library by Julian Hawthorne, Ed.: then there was a common practice, as you will remember, among the
younger students, of going out a masking--that is, of entering
houses in the academic dress, and with the face masked. This
practice subsisted even during the most intense alarm from the
murderers; for the dress of the students was supposed to bring
protection along with it. But, even after suspicion had connected
itself with this dress, it was sufficient that I should appear
unmasked at the head of the maskers, to insure them a friendly
reception. Hence the facility with which death was inflicted, and
that unaccountable absence of any motion toward an alarm. I took
hold of my victim, and he looked at me with smiling security. Our
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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 Phaedrus by Plato: by nature, are necessarily a delight to the lover, and when not implanted,
he must contrive to implant them in him, if he would not be deprived of his
fleeting joy. And therefore he cannot help being jealous, and will debar
his beloved from the advantages of society which would make a man of him,
and especially from that society which would have given him wisdom, and
thereby he cannot fail to do him great harm. That is to say, in his
excessive fear lest he should come to be despised in his eyes he will be
compelled to banish from him divine philosophy; and there is no greater
injury which he can inflict upon him than this. He will contrive that his
beloved shall be wholly ignorant, and in everything shall look to him; he
is to be the delight of the lover's heart, and a curse to himself. Verily,
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