| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Pool of Blood in the Pastor's Study by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: it made from the wood of a red yew tree?"
"Yes, the doctor gave me a whole tree that had been cut down in the
park."
"And that gave you wood for a long time?"
"Yes, indeed; I have been making toys from it for months." Varna
had become quite eager and interested as he handed his visitor a
number of pretty trifles. The two had risen from their chairs and
were leaning over the wide window seat which served as a store-house
for the wares turned out by the busy workman. They were toys,
mostly, all sorts of little pots and plates, dolls' furniture, balls
of various sizes, miniature bowling pins, and tops. Muller took up
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad: "I wouldn't have got into that mess," I suggested, mildly. "I
could have seen that ship before."
He never stirred the least bit.
"No, you couldn't. The weather's thick."
"Oh! I didn't know," I apologized blankly.
I suppose that after all I managed to stave off the smash with
sufficient approach to verisimilitude, and the ghastly business
went on. You must understand that the scheme of the test he was
applying to me was, I gathered, a homeward passage--the sort of
passage I would not wish to my bitterest enemy. That imaginary
ship seemed to labour under a most comprehensive curse. It's no
A Personal Record |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Tapestried Chamber by Walter Scott: looked delightful to the campaigner, when he thought of his
"mansion, the cask." There was an air of gloom in the tapestry
hangings, which, with their worn-out graces, curtained the walls
of the little chamber, and gently undulated as the autumnal
breeze found its way through the ancient lattice window, which
pattered and whistled as the air gained entrance. The toilet,
too, with its mirror, turbaned after the manner of the beginning
of the century, with a coiffure of murrey-coloured silk, and its
hundred strange-shaped boxes, providing for arrangements which
had been obsolete for more than fifty years, had an antique, and
in so far a melancholy, aspect. But nothing could blaze more
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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 Melmoth Reconciled by Honore de Balzac: beheld Castanier divested of his power, shrunken, wrinkled, aged, and
feeble. He had drawn Claparon out of the crowd with the energy of a
sick man in a fever fit; he had looked like an opium-eater during the
brief period of excitement that the drug can give; now, on his return,
he seemed to be in the condition of utter exhaustion in which the
patient dies after the fever departs, or to be suffering from the
horrible prostration that follows on excessive indulgence in the
delights of narcotics. The infernal power that had upheld him through
his debauches had left him, and the body was left unaided and alone to
endure the agony of remorse and the heavy burden of sincere
repentance. Claparon's troubles every one could guess; but Claparon
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