| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Secret Places of the Heart by H. G. Wells: doctor saw Sir Richmond step up on the prostrate megalith and
stand beside her, the better to appreciate her point of view.
He smiled down at her. "Now why do you think they came in
THERE?" he asked.
The young lady was not very clear about her directions. She
did not know of the roadway running to the Avon river, nor of
the alleged race course to the north, nor had she ever heard
that the stones were supposed to be of two different periods
and that some of them might possibly have been brought from a
very great distance.
Section 2
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Adieu by Honore de Balzac: how can I make this stupid general and his wife walk?"
"Take a brand from the fire and threaten them."
"Threaten the countess!"
"Good-bye," said the aide-de-camp, "I have scarcely time to get across
that fatal river--and I MUST; I have a mother in France. What a night!
These poor wretches prefer to lie here in the snow; half will allow
themselves to perish in those flames rather than rise and move on. It
is four o'clock, Philippe! In two hours the Russians will begin to
move. I assure you you will again see the Beresina choked with
corpses. Philippe! think of yourself! You have no horses, you cannot
carry the countess in your arms. Come--come with me!" he said
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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 My Aunt Margaret's Mirror by Walter Scott: protection which the Paduan Doctor received from some friends of
interest and consequence enabled him to set these imputations at
defiance, and to assume, even in the city of Edinburgh, famed as
it was for abhorrence of witches and necromancers, the dangerous
character of an expounder of futurity. It was at length rumoured
that, for a certain gratification, which of course was not an
inconsiderable one, Doctor Baptista Damiotti could tell the fate
of the absent, and even show his visitors the personal form of
their absent friends, and the action in which they were engaged
at the moment. This rumour came to the ears of Lady Forester,
who had reached that pitch of mental agony in which the sufferer
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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 The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin: expressly for the use of any preacher of any religious persuasion
who might desire to say something to the people at Philadelphia;
the design in building not being to accommodate any particular sect,
but the inhabitants in general; so that even if the Mufti of
Constantinople were to send a missionary to preach Mohammedanism to us,
he would find a pulpit at his service.
Mr. Whitefield, in leaving us, went preaching all the way thro'
the colonies to Georgia. The settlement of that province
had lately been begun, but, instead of being made with hardy,
industrious husbandmen, accustomed to labor, the only people fit
for such an enterprise, it was with families of broken shop-keepers
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin |
