| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Common Sense by Thomas Paine: In point of manning a fleet, people in general run into great errors;
it is not necessary that one fourth part should he sailors.
The Terrible privateer, Captain Death, stood the hottest engagement
of any ship last war, yet had not twenty sailors on board,
though her complement of men was upwards of two hundred.
A few able and social sailors will soon instruct a sufficient number
of active landmen in the common work of a ship. Wherefore, we never
can be more capable to begin on maritime matters than now,
while our timber is standing, our fisheries blocked up,
and our sailors and shipwrights out of employ. Men of war of seventy
and eighty guns were built forty years ago in New-England,
Common Sense |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Pocket Diary Found in the Snow by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: door. Amster remained down stairs in the corridor, while Muller
followed the old woman up the stairs. The staircase to the third
story was made of wood. The house was evidently very old, with
low ceilings and many dark corners.
The woman led Muller into the room in which she had cared for the
strange lady at the order of the latter's "husband." He had told
her that it was only until he could take the lady to an asylum. One
look at the wall paper, a glance out of the window, and Muller knew
that this was where Asta Langen had been imprisoned. He sat down
on a chair and looked at the woman, who stood frightened before him.
"Do you know where they have taken the lady?"
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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 Father Damien by Robert Louis Stevenson: you something, if your letter be the means of substituting once for
all a credible likeness for a wax abstraction. For, if that world
at all remember you, on the day when Damien of Molokai shall be
named a Saint, it will be in virtue of one work: your letter to the
Reverend H. B. Gage.
You may ask on what authority I speak. It was my inclement destiny
to become acquainted, not with Damien, but with Dr. Hyde. When I
visited the lazaretto, Damien was already in his resting grave.
But such information as I have, I gathered on the spot in
conversation with those who knew him well and long: some indeed who
revered his memory; but others who had sparred and wrangled with
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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 Travels of Sir John Mandeville by Sir John Mandeville: if they say any word that is displeasance to the soldan. And also,
no stranger cometh before him, but that he maketh him some promise
and grant of that the [stranger] asketh reasonably; by so it be not
against his law. And so do other princes beyond, for they say that
no man shall come before no prince, but that [he be] better, and
shall be more gladder in departing from his presence than he was at
the coming before him.
And understandeth, that that Babylon that I have spoken of, where
that the sultan dwelleth, is not that great Babylon where the
diversity of languages was first made for vengeance by the miracle
of God, when the great Tower of Babel was begun to be made; of the
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