| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The United States Constitution: present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice
and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public
Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other
Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein
otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law:
but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers,
as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law,
or in the Heads of Departments.
The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen
during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall
expire at the End of their next session.
The United States Constitution |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Black Dwarf by Walter Scott: various ways, particularly by the occasional loan of books.
Though the taste of the philosopher and the poor peasant did not,
it may be supposed, always correspond, [I remember David was
particularly anxious to see a book, which he called, I think,
LETTERS TO ELECT LADIES, and which, he said, was the best
composition he had ever read; but Dr. Fergusson's library did not
supply the volume.] Dr. Fergusson considered him as a man of a
powerful capacity and original ideas, but whose mind was thrown
off its just bias by a predominant degree of self-love and self-
opinion, galled by the sense of ridicule and contempt, and
avenging itself upon society, in idea at least, by a gloomy
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: eat Man, and on our ground too!"
The Law of the Jungle, which never orders anything without a
reason, forbids every beast to eat Man except when he is killing
to show his children how to kill, and then he must hunt outside
the hunting grounds of his pack or tribe. The real reason for
this is that man-killing means, sooner or later, the arrival of
white men on elephants, with guns, and hundreds of brown men with
gongs and rockets and torches. Then everybody in the jungle
suffers. The reason the beasts give among themselves is that Man
is the weakest and most defenseless of all living things, and it
is unsportsmanlike to touch him. They say too--and it is true
The Jungle Book |
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 Master and Man by Leo Tolstoy: 'You know we're off the track again!' said Vasili Andreevich.
'How's that?'
'Why, there are no way-marks to be seen. We must have got off
the road again.'
'Well, if we've lost the road we must find it,' said Nikita
curtly, and getting out and stepping lightly on his pigeon-toed
feet he started once more going about on the snow.
He walked about for a long time, now disappearing and now
reappearing, and finally he came back.
'There is no road here. There may be farther on,' he said,
getting into the sledge.
Master and Man |
