| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Pocket Diary Found in the Snow by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: commissioner. "And this evening, too?"
"This very evening. If he is asleep I shall wake him up. That is
the best time to get at the truth about a man.
The commissioner sat down at his desk and wrote out the necessary
credentials for the detective. A few moments later Muller was in
the street. He left the notebook with the commissioner. It was
snowing heavily, and an icy north wind was howling through the
streets. Muller turned up the collar of his coat and walked on
quickly. It was just striking a quarter to twelve when he reached
Cathedral Lane. As he walked slowly along the moonlit side of the
pavement, a man stepped out of the shadow to meet him. It was the
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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 Underdogs by Mariano Azuela: and when there's nobody to pick on, I pull my hair until
my temper passes. If I hadn't pulled my beard hair by
hair, I'd have died a long time ago from sheer anger!"
"It does you no good to go to pieces when you're
angry," a man affirmed earnestly from below a hat that
covered his head as a roof does a house. "When I was
up at Torreon I killed an old lady who refused to sell
me some enchiladas. She was angry, I can tell you; I
got no enchiladas but I felt satisfied anyhow!"
"I killed a storekeeper at Parral because he gave me
some change and there were two Huerta bills in it," said
The Underdogs |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Edingburgh Picturesque Notes by Robert Louis Stevenson: them; so it had appeared to their fathers tilling the
same field; and as that was all they knew of the place,
it could be all expressed in these two words.
Indeed, even on a nearer view, the Old Town is
properly smoked; and though it is well washed with rain
all the year round, it has a grim and sooty aspect among
its younger suburbs. It grew, under the law that
regulates the growth of walled cities in precarious
situations, not in extent, but in height and density.
Public buildings were forced, wherever there was room for
them, into the midst of thoroughfares; thorough - fares
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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 Chance by Joseph Conrad: colour lesson given her for the last time by the cheery old man.
Mr. and Mrs. Fyne ambushed at their window--a most incredible
occupation for people of their kind--saw with renewed anxiety a cab
come to the door, and watched some luggage being carried out and put
on its roof. The butler appeared for a moment, then went in again.
What did it mean? Was Flora going to be taken to her father; or
were these people, that woman and her horrible nephew, about to
carry her off somewhere? Fyne couldn't tell. He doubted the last,
Flora having now, he judged, no value, either positive or
speculative. Though no great reader of character he did not credit
the governess with humane intentions. He confessed to me naively
Chance |
