| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Oscar Wilde Miscellaneous by Oscar Wilde: Find profit in our pain.
Yet I remember
How once upon the road to Padua
A robber sought to take my pack-horse from me,
I slit his throat and left him. I can bear
Dishonour, public insult, many shames,
Shrill scorn, and open contumely, but he
Who filches from me something that is mine,
Ay! though it be the meanest trencher-plate
From which I feed mine appetite--oh! he
Perils his soul and body in the theft
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Stories From the Old Attic by Robert Harris: a report on cost saving ideas by two of our top creative analysts
and it now appears that some idiot fired them yesterday. However,
we are in the process of getting everything straightened out, and
they should be here soon."
"I hope it's Scott and Tina," one of the other executives said.
"They're really brilliant."
"If unconventional," noted another.
"Unconventional or not," said the Chief Operating Officer, "I'll
never forget how they saved us eighty-six million dollars on the
Dazzle II by helping us reduce the number of parts. And when their
expense account came through, all they'd bought were radio batteries
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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 Essays of Francis Bacon by Francis Bacon: Then sweet-briar. Then wall-flowers, which are
very delightful to be set under a parlor or lower
chamber window. Then pinks and gilliflowers,
especially the matted pink and clove gilliflower.
Then the flowers of the lime-tree. Then the honey-
suckles, so they be somewhat afar off. Of bean-
flowers I speak not, because they are field flowers.
But those which perfume the air most delightfully,
not passed by as the rest, but being trodden upon
and crushed, are three; that is, burnet, wild-
thyme, and watermints. Therefore you are to set
Essays of Francis Bacon |
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 Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: again into a sea of subtle distinctions, reservations,
quotations, allusions, and appeals to authorities, and it was
with difficulty that he understood what they were talking about.
"I cannot admit it," said Sergey Ivanovitch, with his habitual
clearness, precision of expression, and elegance of phrase. "I
cannot in any case agree with Keiss that my whole conception of
the external world has been derived from perceptions. The most
fundamental idea, the idea of existence, has not been received by
me through sensation; indeed, there is no special sense-organ for
the transmission of such an idea."
"Yes, but they--Wurt, and Knaust, and Pripasov--would answer that
Anna Karenina |
