| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin: Soon after my return to Philadelphia, our library company receiv'd
from Mr. P. Collinson, Fellow of the Royal Society of London,
a present of a glass tube, with some account of the use of it
in making such experiments. I eagerly seized the opportunity
of repeating what I had seen at Boston; and, by much practice,
acquir'd great readiness in performing those, also, which we had
an account of from England, adding a number of new ones. I say
much practice, for my house was continually full, for some time,
with people who came to see these new wonders.
To divide a little this incumbrance among my friends, I caused
a number of similar tubes to be blown at our glass-house,
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart: is it? You're not trying to put something over on me? Because if
you are, you needn't. I'd about made up my mind to follow the
story through for my own satisfaction, and then quit cold on it.
When a man's pulled himself out of the mud as you have it's not my
business to pull him down. But I don't want you to pull any bunk."
Dick winced.
"Out of the mud!" he said. "No. I'm telling you the truth, Bassett.
I have some fragmentary memories, places and people, but no names,
and all of them, I imagine from my childhood. I pick up at a cabin
in the mountains, with snow around, and David Livingstone feeding me
soup with a tin spoon." He tried to smile and failed. His face
The Breaking Point |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Dream Life and Real Life by Olive Schreiner: among them, and there were no less than six kippersol trees scattered here
and there among the broken kopjes. In the rocks there were hundreds of
homes for the conies, and from the crevices wild asparagus hung down. She
ran to the river, bathed in the clear cold water, and tossed it over her
head. She sang aloud. All the songs she knew were sad, so she could not
sing them now, she was glad, she was so free; but she sang the notes
without the words, as the cock-o-veets do. Singing and jumping all the
way, she went back, and took a sharp stone, and cut at the root of a
kippersol, and got out a large piece, as long as her arm, and sat to chew
it. Two conies came out on the rock above her head and peeped at her. She
held them out a piece, but they did not want it, and ran away.
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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 Dreams & Dust by Don Marquis: And dream their vital bloom and passion
Still survives;
But when we're done with mirth and weeping,
With myrtle, rue, and rose,
Shall Death take Life into his keeping? . . .
No man knows.
What heart hath not, through twilight places,
Sought for its dead again
To gild with love their pallid faces? . . .
Sought in vain! . . .
Still mounts the Dream on shining pinion . . .
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