| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Chronicles of the Canongate by Walter Scott: hundred gentlemen, a secret which, considering that it was
communicated to more than twenty people, had been remarkably well
kept. He was now before the bar of his country, and might be
understood to be on trial before Lord Meadowbank as an offender;
yet he was sure that every impartial jury would bring in a
verdict of Not Proven. He did not now think it necessary to
enter into the reasons of his long silence. Perhaps caprice
might have a consider able share in it. He had now to say,
however, that the merits of these works, if they had any, and
their faults, were entirely imputable to himself. (Long and loud
cheering.) He was afraid to think on what he had done. "Look
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Heart of the West by O. Henry: conviction of her charm, but glance at the stacks of handbills in the
corner, green, and yellow, and white. Upon them you see an incompetent
presentment of the senorita in her professional garb and pose.
Irresistible, in black lace and yellow ribbons, she faces you; a blue
racer is spiralled upon each bare arm; coiled twice about her waist
and once about her neck, his horrid head close to hers, you perceive
Kuku, the great eleven-foot Asian python.
A hand drew aside the curtain that partitioned the car, and a middle-
aged, faded woman holding a knife and a half-peeled potato looked in
and said:
"Alviry, are you right busy?"
Heart of the West |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: wailed as he was entering, and went moaning away from the door.
Though they dwelt in such a solitude, these people held daily
converse with the world. The romantic pass of the Notch is a
great artery, through which the life-blood of internal commerce
is continually throbbing between Maine, on one side, and the
Green Mountains and the shores of the St. Lawrence, on the other.
The stage-coach always drew up before the door of the cottage.
The wayfarer, with no companion but his staff, paused here to
exchange a word, that the sense of loneliness might not utterly
overcome him ere he could pass through the cleft of the mountain,
or reach the first house in the valley. And here the teamster, on
Twice Told Tales |
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 Extracts From Adam's Diary by Mark Twain: THIS WAY TO GOAT ISLAND.
CAVE OF THE WINDS THIS WAY.
She says this park would make a tidy summer resort, if there was
any custom for it. Summer resort--another invention of hers--just
words, without any meaning. What is a summer resort? But it is
best not to ask her, she has such a rage for explaining.
Friday
She has taken to beseeching me to stop going over the Falls. What
harm does it do? Says it makes her shudder. I wonder why. I have
always done it--always liked the plunge, and the excitement, and
the coolness. I supposed it was what the Falls were for. They
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