| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tales of Unrest by Joseph Conrad: remorse which grows slowly, and slowly decays amongst the complicated
facts of life, but a Divine wisdom springing full-grown, armed and
severe out of a tried heart, to combat the secret baseness of motives.
It came to him in a flash that morality is not a method of happiness.
The revelation was terrible. He saw at once that nothing of what he
knew mattered in the least. The acts of men and women, success,
humiliation, dignity, failure--nothing mattered. It was not a
question of more or less pain, of this joy, of that sorrow. It was a
question of truth or falsehood--it was a question of life or death.
He stood in the revealing night--in the darkness that tries the
hearts, in the night useless for the work of men, but in which their
Tales of Unrest |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Under the Andes by Rex Stout: them with a start of wonder; and as I had foreseen, they ran across
and bent over the prostrate forms.
The next instant they, too, were prone on the floor, with
Harry and me on top of them. They did not succumb without a
struggle, and the one I had chosen proved nearly too much for me.
The great muscles of his chest and legs strained under me with
a power that made me doubtful for a moment of the outcome; but the
Incas themselves had taught us how to conquer a man when you attack
him from behind, and I grasped his throat with all the strength
there was in my fingers.
With a desperate effort he got to his knees and grasped my
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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 Iliad by Homer: in power, grant that he who first brought about this war between
us may die, and enter the house of Hades, while we others remain
at peace and abide by our oaths."
Great Hector now turned his head aside while he shook the helmet,
and the lot of Paris flew out first. The others took their
several stations, each by his horses and the place where his arms
were lying, while Alexandrus, husband of lovely Helen, put on his
goodly armour. First he greaved his legs with greaves of good
make and fitted with ancle-clasps of silver; after this he donned
the cuirass of his brother Lycaon, and fitted it to his own body;
he hung his silver-studded sword of bronze about his shoulders,
The Iliad |
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 Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: of beer you must pay fivepence or sevenpence-halfpenny, as the case
may be. You would say that this system of mutual robbery was as
broad as it was long; but I have discovered a plan to make it
broader, with which I here endow the public. It is brief and
simple - radiantly simple. There is one place where five cents are
recognised, and that is the post-office. A quarter is only worth
two bits, a short and a long. Whenever you have a quarter, go to
the post-office and buy five cents worth of postage-stamps; you
will receive in change two dimes, that is, two short bits. The
purchasing power of your money is undiminished. You can go and
have your two glasses of beer all the same; and you have made
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