| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo: a crowd of people, whom curiosity had drawn from all parts of our
college. Though our place of residence at Diou is one of the most
beautiful in all the Indies, we stayed there only a few days, and as
soon as we had recovered our fatigues went on board the ships that
were appointed to convoy the northern fleet. I was in the
admiral's. We arrived at Goa in some vessels bound for Camberia:
here we lost a good old Abyssin convert, a man much valued in his
order, and who was actually prior of his convent when he left
Abyssinia, choosing rather to forsake all for religion than to leave
the way of salvation, which God had so mercifully favoured him with
the knowledge of.
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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 King of the Golden River by John Ruskin: high hill air, instead of refreshing him, seemed to throw his blood
into a fever. The noise of the hill cataracts sounded like mockery
in his ears; they were all distant, and his thirst increased every
moment. Another hour passed, and he again looked down to the flask
at his side; it was half empty, but there was much more than three
drops in it. He stopped to open it, and again, as he did so,
something moved in the path above him. It was a fair child,
stretched nearly lifeless on the rock, its breast heaving with
thirst, its eyes closed, and its lips parched and burning. Hans
eyed it deliberately, drank, and passed on. And a dark gray cloud
came over the sun, and long, snakelike shadows crept up along the
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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 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan by Honore de Balzac: day. I am cold now as I speak to you of that cavern without an
opening, cold, sombre, in which I lived. I, poor little thing that I
was! brought up in a convent like a mystic rose, knowing nothing of
marriage, developing late, I was happy at first; I enjoyed the
goodwill and harmony of our family. The birth of my poor boy, who is
all me--you must have been struck by the likeness? my hair, my eyes,
the shape of my face, my mouth, my smile, my teeth!--well, his birth
was a relief to me; my thoughts were diverted by the first joys of
maternity from my husband, who gave me no pleasure and did nothing for
me that was kind or amiable; those joys were all the keener because I
knew no others. It had been so often rung into my ears that a mother
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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 Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley: PLANTS, ARE THERE NOT WATER-GRASS, AND WATER-CROWFOOT, WATER-
MILFOIL, AND SO ON, WITHOUT END?
"But all these things are only nicknames; the water things are not
really akin to the land things."
That's not always true. They are, in millions of cases, not only
of the same family, but actually the same individual creatures. Do
not even you know that a green drake, and an alder-fly, and a
dragon-fly, live under water till they change their skins, just as
Tom changed his? And if a water animal can continually change into
a land animal, why should not a land animal sometimes change into a
water animal? Don't be put down by any of Cousin Cramchild's
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