| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso: That no devotion, as they falsely feign,
Hath moved the French these countries to subdue;
But vile ambition, and pride's hateful vice,
Desire of rule, and spoil, and covetice.
XVI
"And that to fight I am not only prest
With one or two that dare defend the cause,
But come the fourth or fifth, come all the rest,
Come all that will, and all that weapon draws,
Let him that yields obey the victor's hest,
As wills the lore of mighty Mars his laws:"
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Crito by Plato: SOCRATES: Then why did you sit and say nothing, instead of at once
awakening me?
CRITO: I should not have liked myself, Socrates, to be in such great
trouble and unrest as you are--indeed I should not: I have been watching
with amazement your peaceful slumbers; and for that reason I did not awake
you, because I wished to minimize the pain. I have always thought you to
be of a happy disposition; but never did I see anything like the easy,
tranquil manner in which you bear this calamity.
SOCRATES: Why, Crito, when a man has reached my age he ought not to be
repining at the approach of death.
CRITO: And yet other old men find themselves in similar misfortunes, and
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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 Island Nights' Entertainments by Robert Louis Stevenson: "All right," says I, "I'll wait till you're through with this."
And I sat right down beside her on the floor, and set to smooth her
hair with my hand. At first she wriggled away when I touched her;
then she seemed to notice me no more; then her sobs grew gradually
less, and presently stopped; and the next thing I knew, she raised
her face to mime.
"You tell me true? You like me stop?" she asked.
"Uma," I said, "I would rather have you than all the copra in the
South Seas," which was a very big expression, and the strangest
thing was that I meant it.
She threw her arms about me, sprang close up, and pressed her face
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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 Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain: pride, till the bell rang. She roused up, now, with a
vindictive cast in her eye, and gave her plaited tails a
shake and said she knew what SHE'D do.
At recess Tom continued his flirtation with Amy
with jubilant self-satisfaction. And he kept drifting
about to find Becky and lacerate her with the per-
formance. At last he spied her, but there was a
sudden falling of his mercury. She was sitting cosily
on a little bench behind the schoolhouse looking at a
picture-book with Alfred Temple -- and so absorbed
were they, and their heads so close together over
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer |
