| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from What is Man? by Mark Twain: reflecting in the public street again he would run me in.
After a few days I was out of money. Then Circumstance
arrived, with another turning-point of my life--a new link. On
my way down, I had made the acquaintance of a pilot. I begged
him to teach me the river, and he consented. I became a pilot.
By and by Circumstance came again--introducing the Civil
War, this time, in order to push me ahead another stage or two
toward the literary profession. The boats stopped running, my
livelihood was gone.
Circumstance came to the rescue with a new turning-point and
a fresh link. My brother was appointed secretary to the new
What is Man? |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo: furnished. This practice is so well established that a stranger
goes into a house of one he never saw with the same familiarity and
assurance of welcome as into that of an intimate friend or near
relation; a custom very convenient, but which gives encouragement to
great numbers of vagabonds throughout the kingdom.
There is no money in Abyssinia, except in the eastern provinces,
where they have iron coin: but in the chief provinces all commerce
is managed by exchange. Their chief trade consists in provisions,
cows, sheep, goats, fowls, pepper, and gold, which is weighed out to
the purchaser, and principally in salt, which is properly the money
of this country.
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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 Land of Footprints by Stewart Edward White: horizon. On the other side were two very green hills, looking
nearly straight up and down, and through a cleft the splintered
snow-clad summit of Mt. Kenia.
At length this gentle foothill slope broke over into rougher
country. Then, in the pass, we came upon many parallel beaten
paths, wider and straighter than the game trails-native tracks.
That night we camped in a small, round valley under some glorious
trees, with green grass around us; a refreshing contrast after
the desert brown. In the distance ahead stood a big hill, and at
its base we could make out amid the tree-green, the straight slim
smoke of many fires and the threads of many roads.
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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 Scarecrow of Oz by L. Frank Baum: Princess was not at all moved by his distress. Passing
him by, she drew her skirts aside, as if unwilling they
should touch him, and then she walked up the path a way
and hesitated, as if uncertain where to go next.
Trot was grieved by Pon's sobs and indignant because
Gloria treated him so badly. But she remembered why.
"I guess your heart is frozen, all right," she said to
the Princess. Gloria nodded gravely, in reply, and then
turned her back upon the little girl. "Can't you like
even me?" asked Trot, half pleadingly.
"No," said Gloria.
The Scarecrow of Oz |
