| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: down, and a fig for all the inns in England; if we have a good tent
over our heads we shall do well enough.'
The joiner opposed this, and told them, let them leave that to him;
he would undertake to build them a house every night with his hatchet
and mallet, though he had no other tools, which should be fully to
their satisfaction, and as good as a tent.
The soldier and the joiner disputed that point some time, but at last
the soldier carried it for a tent. The only objection against it was,
that it must be carried with them, and that would increase their baggage
too much, the weather being hot; but the sailmaker had a piece of
good hap fell in which made that easy, for his master whom he
A Journal of the Plague Year |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Charmides and Other Poems by Oscar Wilde: To my old fitful restless malady,
Or spend my days within the voiceless cave of misery?
Nay! for perchance that poppy-crowned god
Is like the watcher by a sick man's bed
Who talks of sleep but gives it not; his rod
Hath lost its virtue, and, when all is said,
Death is too rude, too obvious a key
To solve one single secret in a life's philosophy.
And Love! that noble madness, whose august
And inextinguishable might can slay
The soul with honeyed drugs, - alas! I must
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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 Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy: hidden from Eustacia by a shoulder of the hill. Her walk
thither from the garden gate had been hasty and determined,
as of a woman who was now no less anxious to escape from
the scene than she had previously been to enter it.
Her eyes were fixed on the ground; within her two sights
were graven--that of Clym's hook and brambles at the door,
and that of a woman's face at a window. Her lips trembled,
becoming unnaturally thin as she murmured, "'Tis too
much--Clym, how can he bear to do it! He is at home;
and yet he lets her shut the door against me!"
In her anxiety to get out of the direct view of the house
Return of the Native |
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 Cratylus by Plato: disposed, we will conjure him away, and make a purgation of him, if we can
only find some priest or sophist who is skilled in purifications of this
sort.
HERMOGENES: With all my heart; for am very curious to hear the rest of the
enquiry about names.
SOCRATES: Then let us proceed; and where would you have us begin, now that
we have got a sort of outline of the enquiry? Are there any names which
witness of themselves that they are not given arbitrarily, but have a
natural fitness? The names of heroes and of men in general are apt to be
deceptive because they are often called after ancestors with whose names,
as we were saying, they may have no business; or they are the expression of
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