| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from King Lear by William Shakespeare: That slaves your ordinance, that will not see
Because he does not feel, feel your pow'r quickly;
So distribution should undo excess,
And each man have enough. Dost thou know Dover?
Edg. Ay, master.
Glou. There is a cliff, whose high and bending head
Looks fearfully in the confined deep.
Bring me but to the very brim of it,
And I'll repair the misery thou dost bear
With something rich about me. From that place
I shall no leading need.
King Lear |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Pierrette by Honore de Balzac: years old when the second child was born. By this time the eldest,
Madame Rogron, had two grown-up children.
The youngest daughter of the old man was married at eighteen to a man
of her choice, a Breton officer named Lorrain, captain in the Imperial
Guard. Love often makes a man ambitious. The captain, anxious to rise
to a colonelcy, exchanged into a line regiment. While he, then a
major, and his wife enjoyed themselves in Paris on the allowance made
to them by Monsieur and Madame Auffray, or scoured Germany at the beck
and call of the Emperor's battles and truces, old Auffray himself
(formerly a grocer) died, at the age of eighty-eight, without having
found time to make a will. His property was administered by his
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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 Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: meddling. There were reports on statistics--circumstantial,
inaccurate, and useless--as statistics are too often wont to be.
Sometimes, when the people were starving, the Government sent down
charitable donations to certain parishes, on condition that the
inhabitants should raise a sum on their part. When the sum offered
was sufficient, the Comptroller-General wrote on the margin, when he
returned the report to the intendant, "Good--express satisfaction."
If it was more than sufficient, he wrote, "Good--express
satisfaction and sensibility." There is nothing new under the sun.
In 1761, the Government, jealous enough of newspapers, determined to
start one for itself, and for that purpose took under its tutelage
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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 Mother by Owen Wister: "'Hate her? Why, you have never so much as laid eyes on her.'"
"'That is not at all necessary. I consider it indecent for a grey haired
woman with grandchildren to be speculating in the stock market every week
like a regular bull or bear.'"
"Every point in this outburst of Ethel's seemed to me so unwarrantable
that I was quite dazed. I sat looking at her, and her eyes filled with
tears. 'Oh Richard!' she exclaimed, 'she will ruin you, and I hate her!'"
"'My dear Ethel,' I replied, 'she will not. And only see how you are
making it all up out of your head. You have never seen her, but you speak
of her as a grey-haired grandmother.'"
"'She must be, Richard. You have told me that Mr. Beverly is a married
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