| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle: twenty-seven years in the force, but this really takes the cake."
"If I am Mr. Neville St. Clair, then it is obvious that no crime
has been committed, and that, therefore, I am illegally
detained."
"No crime, but a very great error has been committed," said
Holmes. "You would have done better to have trusted you wife."
"It was not the wife; it was the children," groaned the prisoner.
"God help me, I would not have them ashamed of their father. My
God! What an exposure! What can I do?"
Sherlock Holmes sat down beside him on the couch and patted him
kindly on the shoulder.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Menexenus by Plato: but in deed. And we ought also to remember those who then fell by one
another's hands, and on such occasions as these to reconcile them with
sacrifices and prayers, praying to those who have power over them, that
they may be reconciled even as we are reconciled. For they did not attack
one another out of malice or enmity, but they were unfortunate. And that
such was the fact we ourselves are witnesses, who are of the same race with
them, and have mutually received and granted forgiveness of what we have
done and suffered. After this there was perfect peace, and the city had
rest; and her feeling was that she forgave the barbarians, who had severely
suffered at her hands and severely retaliated, but that she was indignant
at the ingratitude of the Hellenes, when she remembered how they had
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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 Essays of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: The next morning, at breakfast, I communicated to the smart waitress
my intention of continuing down the coast and through Whitehaven to
Furness, and, as I might have expected, I was instantly confronted by
that last and most worrying form of interference, that chooses to
introduce tradition and authority into the choice of a man's own
pleasures. I can excuse a person combating my religious or
philosophical heresies, because them I have deliberately accepted,
and am ready to justify by present argument. But I do not seek to
justify my pleasures. If I prefer tame scenery to grand, a little
hot sunshine over lowland parks and woodlands to the war of the
elements round the summit of Mont Blanc; or if I prefer a pipe of
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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 Ursula by Honore de Balzac: skin, learned the power of money and seen in the magistracy a means of
advancement which he fancied. During the last year he had spent an
extra sum of ten thousand francs in the company of artists,
journalists, and their mistresses. A confidential and rather
disquieting letter from his son, asking for his consent to a marriage,
explains the watch which the post master was now keeping on the
bridge; for Madame Minoret-Levrault, busy in preparing a sumptuous
breakfast to celebrate the triumphal return of the licentiate, had
sent her husband to the mail road, advising him to take a horse and
ride out if he saw nothing of the diligence. The coach which was
conveying the precious son usually arrived at five in the morning and
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