| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen: can express."
"I am extremely glad to hear it, upon my word;
extremely glad indeed. But so it ought to be; they are
people of large fortune, they are related to you, and
every civility and accommodation that can serve to make
your situation pleasant might be reasonably expected.
And so you are most comfortably settled in your little cottage
and want for nothing! Edward brought us a most charming
account of the place: the most complete thing of its kind,
he said, that ever was, and you all seemed to enjoy it beyond
any thing. It was a great satisfaction to us to hear it,
Sense and Sensibility |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson: canal like a squire's avenue, we went ashore to lunch. There were
two eggs, a junk of bread, and a bottle of wine on board the
ARETHUSA; and two eggs and an Etna cooking apparatus on board the
CIGARETTE. The master of the latter boat smashed one of the eggs
in the course of disembarkation; but observing pleasantly that it
might still be cooked A LA PAPIER, he dropped it into the Etna, in
its covering of Flemish newspaper. We landed in a blink of fine
weather; but we had not been two minutes ashore before the wind
freshened into half a gale, and the rain began to patter on our
shoulders. We sat as close about the Etna as we could. The
spirits burned with great ostentation; the grass caught flame every
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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 Complete Poems of Longfellow by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: That from the world of spirits comes no greeting,
No message of remembrance? It may be
The thoughts that visit us, we know not whence,
Sudden as inspiration, are the whispers
Of disembodied spirits, speaking to us
As friends, who wait outside a prison wall,
Through the barred windows speak to those within.
[A pause.
As quiet as the lake that lies beneath me,
As quiet as the tranquil sky above me,
As quiet as a heart that beats no 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 Captain Stormfield by Mark Twain: outsell Satan's. Well, they had grand times at that reception - a
small-fry noble from Hoboken told me all about it - Sir Richard
Duffer, Baronet."
"What, Sandy, a nobleman from Hoboken? How is that?"
"Easy enough. Duffer kept a sausage-shop and never saved a cent in
his life because he used to give all his spare meat to the poor, in
a quiet way. Not tramps, - no, the other sort - the sort that will
starve before they will beg - honest square people out of work.
Dick used to watch hungry-looking men and women and children, and
track them home, and find out all about them from the neighbors,
and then feed them and find them work. As nobody ever saw him give
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