| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Case of The Lamp That Went Out by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: possession of considerable sums. During these days he indulged in
extravagant pleasures and spent his money with a recklessness which
proved that he had not earned it by honest work.
Leopold Winkler was a blackmailer.
Colonel Leining, retired, the father of two such widely different
children, was doubtless a man of stern principles, and an army
officer as well, therefore a man with a doubly sensitive code of
honour and a social position to maintain; and this man, morbidly
sensitive probably, had a daughter who had inherited his
sensitiveness and his high ideals of honour, a daughter married to
a rich husband. But he had another child, a son without any sense
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Almayer's Folly by Joseph Conrad: With a last scornful look towards the sleeper, Mrs. Almayer
passed behind the curtain into her own room. A couple of bats,
encouraged by the darkness and the peaceful state of affairs,
resumed their silent and oblique gambols above Almayer's head,
and for a long time the profound quiet of the house was unbroken,
save for the deep breathing of the sleeping man and the faint
tinkle of silver in the hands of the woman preparing for flight.
In the increasing light of the moon that had risen now above the
night mist, the objects on the verandah came out strongly
outlined in black splashes of shadow with all the uncompromising
ugliness of their disorder, and a caricature of the sleeping
Almayer's Folly |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Caesar's Commentaries in Latin by Julius Caesar: itineribus quibus eo pervenissent ad salutem contenderent. Maiori tamen
parti placuit, hoc reservato ad extremum consilio interim rei
eventum experiri et castra defendere.
Brevi spatio interiecto, vix ut iis rebus quas constituissent
conlocandis atque administrandis tempus daretur, hostes ex omnibus
partibus signo dato decurrere, lapides gaesaque in vallum coicere. Nostri
primo integris viribus fortiter propugnare neque ullum flustra telum ex
loco superiore mittere, et quaecumque pars castrorum nudata defensoribus
premi videbatur, eo occurrere et auxilium ferre, sed hoc superari quod
diuturnitate pugnae hostes defessi proelio excedebant, alii integris
viribus succedebant; quarum rerum a nostris propter paucitatem fieri nihil
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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 Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: instructions to hear all they might have to say, but not to
definitely conclude anything. On learning the true nature of
their errand he was about to recall him, when he received a
telegram from General Grant, regretting that Mr. Lincoln himself
could not see the commissioners, because, to Grant's mind, they
seemed sincere.
Anxious to do everything he could in the interest of peace, Mr.
Lincoln, instead of recalling Secretary Seward, telegraphed that
he would himself come to Fortress Monroe, and started that same
night. The next morning, February 3, 1865, he and the Secretary
of State received the rebel commissioners on board the
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