| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Second Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by
the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil
shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn by the lash
shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said
three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, "The
judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in
the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on
to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds;
to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow,
and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just
Second Inaugural Address |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: is a regular Italian."
"Money apart," Andoche Finot put in sourly.
"Oh, come, come," said Bixiou coaxingly; "after what we have just been
saying, will you venture to blame poor Rastignac for living at the
expense of the firm of Nucingen, for being installed in furnished
rooms precisely as La Torpille was once installed by our friend des
Lupeaulx? You would sink to the vulgarity of the Rue Saint-Denis!
First of all, 'in the abstract,' as Royer-Collard says, the question
may abide the Kritik of Pure Reason; as for the impure reason----"
"There he goes!" said Finot, turning to Blondet.
"But there is reason in what he says," exclaimed Blondet. "The problem
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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 Lysis by Plato: you have praised him, the more ridiculous you will look at having lost this
fairest and best of blessings; and therefore the wise lover does not praise
his beloved until he has won him, because he is afraid of accidents. There
is also another danger; the fair, when any one praises or magnifies them,
are filled with the spirit of pride and vain-glory. Do you not agree with
me?
Yes, he said.
And the more vain-glorious they are, the more difficult is the capture of
them?
I believe you.
What should you say of a hunter who frightened away his prey, and made the
Lysis |
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 Land of Footprints by Stewart Edward White: Memba Sasa always exhaled a grunt of satisfaction-"hah!"-in
which triumph and satisfaction mingled with a faint derision at
the unfortunate beast. In case of a trophy he squatted anxiously
at the animal's head while I took my measurements, assisting very
intelligently with the tape line. When I had finished, he always
looked up at me with wrinkled brow.
"Footie n'gapi?" he inquired. This means literally, "How many
feet?", footie being his euphemistic invention of a word for the
tape. I would tell him how many "footie" and how many "inchie"
the measurement proved to be. From the depths of his wonderful
memory he would dig up the measurements of another beast of the
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