| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Tanach: 1_Chronicles 9: 10 And of the priests: Jedaiah, and Jehoiarib, and Jachin;
1_Chronicles 9: 11 and Azariah the son of Hilkiah, the son of Meshullam, the son of Zadok, the son of Meraioth, the son of Ahitub, the ruler of the house of God;
1_Chronicles 9: 12 and Adaiah the son of Jeroham, the son of Pashhur, the son of Malchijah, and Maasai the son of Adiel, the son of Jahzerah, the son of Meshullam, the son of Meshillemith, the son of Immer;
1_Chronicles 9: 13 and their brethren, heads of their fathers' houses, a thousand and seven hundred and threescore; very able men for the work of the service of the house of God.
1_Chronicles 9: 14 And of the Levites: Shemaiah the son of Hasshub, the son of Azrikam, the son of Hashabiah, of the sons of Merari;
1_Chronicles 9: 15 and Bakbakkar, Heresh, and Galal, and Mattaniah the son of Mica, the son of Zichri, the son of Asaph;
1_Chronicles 9: 16 and Obadiah the son of Shemaiah, the son of Galal, the son of Jeduthun, and Berechiah the son of Asa, the son of Elkanah, that dwelt in the villages of the Netophathites.
1_Chronicles 9: 17 And the porters: Shallum, and Akkub, and Talmon, and Ahiman, and their brother Shallum the chief;
1_Chronicles 9: 18 who hitherto waited in the king's gate eastward; they were the porters for the camp of the children of Levi.
1_Chronicles 9: 19 And Shallum the son of Kore, the son of Ebiasaph, the son of Korah, and his brethren, of his father's house, the Korahites, were over the work of the service, keepers of the gates 
The Tanach |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson: or the "Three Musketeers."
Robert, Gilbert, Clement, and Andrew - in the proper Border diminutives,
Hob, Gib, Clem, and Dand Elliott - these ballad heroes, had much in
common; in particular, their high sense of the family and the family
honour; but they went diverse ways, and prospered and failed in
different businesses. According to Kirstie, "they had a' bees in their
bonnets but Hob." Hob the laird was, indeed, essentially a decent man.
An elder of the Kirk, nobody had heard an oath upon his lips, save
perhaps thrice or so at the sheep-washing, since the chase of his
father's murderers. The figure he had shown on that eventful night
disappeared as if swallowed by a trap. He who had ecstatically dipped
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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 Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf: and I've no doubt you've read heaps of learned books."
Elderly banter would no longer check her.
"You talk of unity," she said. "You ought to make me understand."
"I never allow my wife to talk politics," he said seriously.
"For this reason. It is impossible for human beings, constituted as
they are, both to fight and to have ideals. If I have preserved mine,
as I am thankful to say that in great measure I have, it is due
to the fact that I have been able to come home to my wife in
the evening and to find that she has spent her day in calling,
music, play with the children, domestic duties--what you will;
her illusions have not been destroyed. She gives me courage to go on.
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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 Silas Marner by George Eliot: have always been pressed close by primitive wants, and to whom a
life of hard toil has never been illuminated by any enthusiastic
religious faith. To them pain and mishap present a far wider range
of possibilities than gladness and enjoyment: their imagination is
almost barren of the images that feed desire and hope, but is all
overgrown by recollections that are a perpetual pasture to fear.
"Is there anything you can fancy that you would like to eat?" I
once said to an old labouring man, who was in his last illness, and
who had refused all the food his wife had offered him. "No," he
answered, "I've never been used to nothing but common victual, and
I can't eat that." Experience had bred no fancies in him that
Silas Marner |
