| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain: the effects produced. I was soon satisfied that the
knowledge of who these three prisoners were had some-
how changed the atmosphere; that our hosts' con-
tinued eagerness to go and spread the news was now
only pretended and not real. The king did not notice
the change, and I was glad of that. I worked the
conversation around toward other details of the night's
proceedings, and noted that these people were relieved
to have it take that direction.
The painful thing observable about all this business
was the alacrity with which this oppressed community
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Touchstone by Edith Wharton: for the comparative novelty of correspondence. Her letters, oddly
enough, seemed at first to bring her nearer than her presence.
She had adopted, and she successfully maintained, a note as
affectionately impersonal as his own; she wrote ardently of her
work, she questioned him about his, she even bantered him on the
inevitable pretty girl who was certain before long to divert the
current of his confidences. To Glennard, who was almost a
stranger in New York, the sight of Mrs. Aubyn's writing was like a
voice of reassurance in surroundings as yet insufficiently aware
of him. His vanity found a retrospective enjoyment in the
sentiment his heart had rejected, and this factitious emotion
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell: Scarlett had apportioned to Johnnie's mill. Their convict uniforms
were dirty and foul with sweat, shackles clanked between their
ankles when they moved tiredly, and there was an air of apathy and
despair about them. They were a thin, unwholesome lot, Scarlett
thought, peering sharply at them, and when she had leased them, so
short a time before, they were an upstanding crew. They did not
even raise their eyes as she dismounted from the buggy but Johnnie
turned toward her, carelessly dragging off his hat. His little
brown face was as hard as a nut as he greeted her.
"I don't like the look of the men," she said abruptly. "They don't
look well. Where's the other one?"
Gone With the Wind |
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 Koran: Discrimination.
Verily, those who disbelieve in the signs of God, for them is severe
torment, for God is mighty and avenging.
Verily, God, there is nothing hidden from Him in the earth, nor in
the heaven; He it is who fashions you in the womb as He pleases. There
is no God but He, the mighty, the wise.
He it is who has revealed to thee the Book, of which there are
some verses that are decisive, they are the mother of the Book; and
others ambiguous; but as for those in whose hearts is perversity, they
follow what is ambiguous, and do crave for sedition, craving for
(their own) interpretation of it; but none know the interpretation
The Koran |
