| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Mad King by Edgar Rice Burroughs: me only misery and suffering--the crown that has now
placed the sentence of death upon me."
"Why not let him go?" suggested the trooper, who up to
this time had not spoken. "If we don't kill him, we can't be
hanged for his murder."
"Don't be too sure of that," exclaimed Maenck. "If he
goes away and never returns, what proof can we offer that
we did not kill him, should we be charged with the crime?
And if we let him go, and later he returns and gains his
throne, he will see that we are hanged anyway for treason.
"The safest thing to do is to put him where he at least
The Mad King |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Statesman by Plato: has been said, should praise or blame the length or shortness of
discussions, not by comparing them with one another, but with what is
fitting, having regard to the part of measurement, which, as we said, was
to be borne in mind.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: And yet, not everything is to be judged even with a view to what
is fitting; for we should only want such a length as is suited to give
pleasure, if at all, as a secondary matter; and reason tells us, that we
should be contented to make the ease or rapidity of an enquiry, not our
first, but our second object; the first and highest of all being to assert
the great method of division according to species--whether the discourse be
Statesman |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin by Robert Louis Stevenson: seven) grinding it in at the rate of a mile and three-quarters per
hour, which appears a grand speed to us. If the paying-out only
works well! I have just thought of a great improvement in it; I
can't apply it this time, however. - The sea is of an oily calm,
and a perfect fleet of brigs and ships surrounds us, their sails
hardly filling in the lazy breeze. The sun sets behind the dim
coast of the Isola San Pietro, the coast of Sardinia high and
rugged becomes softer and softer in the distance, while to the
westward still the isolated rock of Toro springs from the horizon.
- It would amuse you to see how cool (in head) and jolly everybody
is. A testy word now and then shows the wires are strained a
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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 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, etc. by Oscar Wilde: rector of the parish, whose candle he had blown out as he was
coming late one night from the library, and who had been under the
care of Sir William Gull ever since, a perfect martyr to nervous
disorders; and of old Madame de Tremouillac, who, having wakened up
one morning early and seen a skeleton seated in an arm-chair by the
fire reading her diary, had been confined to her bed for six weeks
with an attack of brain fever, and, on her recovery, had become
reconciled to the Church, and broken off her connection with that
notorious sceptic Monsieur de Voltaire. He remembered the terrible
night when the wicked Lord Canterville was found choking in his
dressing-room, with the knave of diamonds half-way down his throat,
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