| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates by Howard Pyle: contempt. He had, he said, sailed in the China Sea and the
Indian Ocean too long to be afraid of any hog-eating Yankee
pirate such as this Blueskin. A junk full of coolies armed with
stink-pots was something to speak of, but who ever heard of the
likes of Blueskin falling afoul of anything more than a Spanish
canoe or a Yankee coaster?
Levi grinned. "All the same, my hearty," said he, "if I was you
I'd give Blueskin a wide berth. I hear that he's cleaned the
vessel that was careened awhile ago, and mebby he'll give you a
little trouble if you come too nigh him."
To this the Englishman only answered that Blueskin might be----,
Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from My Aunt Margaret's Mirror by Walter Scott: some years; but sat down while my aunt added, laying her hand
upon my sleeve, "The chapel has been long considered as common
ground, my dear, and used for a pinfold, and what objection can
we have to the man for employing what is his own to his own
profit? Besides, I did speak to him, and he very readily and
civilly promised that if he found bones or monuments, they should
be carefully respected and reinstated; and what more could I ask?
So, the first stone they found bore the name of Margaret
Bothwell, 1585, and I have caused it to be laid carefully aside,
as I think it betokens death, and having served my namesake two
hundred years, it has just been cast up in time to do me the same
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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 A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: the granite? A world of fancies came into our minds. As our guide had
prophesied, we passed in silence, rapidly; when he met us he saw our
emotion of mingled terror and astonishment, but he made no boast of
the truth of his prediction; he merely said,--
"You have seen him."
"Who is that man?"
"They call him the Man of the Vow."
You can imagine the movement with which our two heads turned at once
to our guide. He was a simple-hearted fellow; he understood at once
our mute inquiry, and here follows what he told us; I shall try to
give it as best I can in his own language, retaining his popular
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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 Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy: Inside the inn, everything was still. Brogard and his wife,
terrified of Chauvelin, had given no sign of life; they hoped to be
forgotten, and at any rate to remain unperceived: Marguerite could not
even hear their usual volleys of muttered oaths.
She waited a moment or two longer, then she quietly slipped
down the broken stairs, wrapped her dark cloak closely round her and
slipped out of the inn.
The night was fairly dark, sufficiently so at any rate to hide
her dark figure from view, whilst her keen ears kept count of the
sound of the cart going on ahead. She hoped by keeping well within
the shadow of the ditches which lined the road, that she would not be
The Scarlet Pimpernel |
