| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: which he could not understand.
As a fact, the boy did feel that he could not understand this
relation, and he tried painfully, and was not able to make clear
to himself what feeling he ought to have for this man. Whith a
child's keen instinct for every manifestation of feeling, he saw
distinctly that his father, his governess, his nurse,--all did
not merely dislike Vronsky, but looked on him with horror and
aversion, though they never said anything about him, while his
mother looked on him as her greatest friend.
"What does it mean? Who is he? How ought I to love him? If I
don't know, it's my fault; either I'm stipid or a naughty boy,"
Anna Karenina |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tales of the Klondyke by Jack London: his knees, holding precariously on with one hand, his whip singing
fiercely among his dogs and fearsome abjurations hurtling about
their ears. The teams spread out on the smooth surface, each
straining to the uttermost. But few men in the North could lift
their dogs as did Jack Harrington. At once he began to pull
ahead, and Louis Savoy, taking the pace, hung on desperately, his
leaders running even with the tail of his rival's sled.
Midway on the glassy stretch their relays shot out from the bank.
But Harrington did not slacken. Watching his chance when the new
sled swung in close, he leaped across, shouting as he did so and
jumping up the pace of his fresh dogs. The other driver fell off
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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 Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain: next day or even the next hour, but in the very minute that the
impression was taken. When I go upon the witness stand I will
repeat under oath the things which I am now saying. I have the
fingerprints of the court, the sheriff, and every member of the jury.
There is hardly a person in this room, white or black,
whose natal signature I cannot produce, and not one of them can
so disguise himself that I cannot pick him out from a multitude
of his fellow creatures and unerringly identify him by his hands.
And if he and I should live to be a hundred I could still do it.
[The interest of the audience was steadily deepening now.]
"I have studied some of these signatures so much that I know
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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 Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: very uncouth, to see three naked men and five naked women, all
together bound, and in the most miserable circumstances that human
nature could be supposed to be, viz. to be expecting every moment
to be dragged out and have their brains knocked out, and then to be
eaten up like a calf that is killed for a dainty.
The first thing they did was to cause the old Indian, Friday's
father, to go in, and see first if he knew any of them, and then if
he understood any of their speech. As soon as the old man came in,
he looked seriously at them, but knew none of them; neither could
any of them understand a word he said, or a sign he could make,
except one of the women. However, this was enough to answer the
Robinson Crusoe |
