| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Captain Stormfield by Mark Twain: didn't all think alike, anyway. When I was a boy of seven, I
suppose I thought we'd all be twelve, in heaven; when I was twelve,
I suppose I thought we'd all be eighteen or twenty in heaven; when
I was forty, I begun to go back; I remember I hoped we'd all be
about THIRTY years old in heaven. Neither a man nor a boy ever
thinks the age he HAS is exactly the best one - he puts the right
age a few years older or a few years younger than he is. Then he
makes that ideal age the general age of the heavenly people. And
he expects everybody TO STICK at that age - stand stock-still - and
expects them to enjoy it! - Now just think of the idea of standing
still in heaven! Think of a heaven made up entirely of hoop-
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Off on a Comet by Jules Verne: not many cable lengths away.
At a sign from Servadac, an orderly, who had been standing at
a respectful distance, led forward a magnificent Arabian horse;
the captain vaulted into the saddle, and followed by his attendant,
well mounted as himself, started off towards Mostaganem. It was
half-past twelve when the two riders crossed the bridge that had been
recently erected over the Shelif, and a quarter of an hour later
their steeds, flecked with foam, dashed through the Mascara Gate,
which was one of five entrances opened in the embattled wall
that encircled the town.
At that date, Mostaganem contained about fifteen thousand inhabitants,
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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 Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz by L. Frank Baum: Henry says 'Eureka' means 'I have found it.'"
"All right; hop in."
She climbed into the buggy and he followed her. Then the boy picked
up the reins, shook them, and said "Gid-dap!"
The horse did not stir. Dorothy thought he just wiggled one of his
drooping ears, but that was all.
"Gid-dap!" called the boy, again.
The horse stood still.
"Perhaps," said Dorothy, "if you untied him, he would go."
The boy laughed cheerfully and jumped out.
"Guess I'm half asleep yet," he said, untying the horse. "But Jim
Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz |
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 Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson: prison was still to be observed, with flowers and pot-herbs running
wild, and some ripe cherries on a bush. A little lower stood a chapel
or a hermit's cell; who built or dwelt in it, none may know, and the
thought of its age made a ground of many meditations. The prison, too,
where I now bivouacked with Highland cattle-thieves, was a place full
of history, both human and divine. I thought it strange so many saints
and martyrs should have gone by there so recently, and left not so much
as a leaf out of their Bibles, or a name carved upon the wall, while
the rough soldier lads that mounted guard upon the battlements had
filled the neighbourhood with their mementoes - broken tobacco-pipes
for the most part, and that in a surprising plenty, but also metal
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