| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers by Jonathan Swift: calmness: In this dispute, I am sensible the eyes not only of
England, but of all Europe, will be upon us; and the learned in
every country will, I doubt not, take part on that side, where
they find most appearance of reason and truth.
Without entering into criticisms of chronology about the hour of
his death, I shall only prove that Mr. Partridge is not alive.
And my first argument is thus: Above a thousand gentelmen having
bought his almanacks for this year, merely to find what he said
against me; at every line they read, they would lift up their
eyes, and cry out, betwixt rage and laughter, "They were sure no
man alive ever writ such damn'd stuff as this." Neither did I
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Warlord of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs:
A quick glance about they took. Their eyes rested for a moment,
wide in horror, upon the dead body of Salensus Oll, upon the blood
that crimsoned the floor, upon the corpses of the nobles who had
fallen thick before the throne, upon me, and upon the battling
warriors at the other door.
They did not essay to enter the apartment, but scanned its
every corner from where they stood, and then, when their eyes had
sought its entire area, a look of fierce rage overspread the
features of Matai Shang, and a cold and cunning smile touched the
The Warlord of Mars |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer: Then he ran out and rang us up. I immediately wired for you."
"He heard the row, you say. What row?"
"Miss Edmonds went into violent hysterics!"
Smith was pacing the room now in tense excitement.
"Describe what he saw when he came in."
"He saw a negro footman--there isn't an Englishman in the house--
trying to pacify the girl out in the hall yonder, and a Malay
and another colored man beating their foreheads and howling.
There was no sense to be got out of any of them, so he started
to investigate for himself. He had taken the bearings of the place
earlier in the evening, and from the light in a window on the ground
The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu |
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 Democracy In America, Volume 1 by Alexis de Toqueville: distributed in several ways, but it must always exist somewhere.
There are two methods of diminishing the force of authority
in a nation: The first is to weaken the supreme power in its very
principle, by forbidding or preventing society from acting in its
own defence under certain circumstances. To weaken authority in
this manner is what is generally termed in Europe to lay the
foundations of freedom. The second manner of diminishing the
influence of authority does not consist in stripping society of
any of its rights, nor in paralyzing its efforts, but in
distributing the exercise of its privileges in various hands, and
in multiplying functionaries, to each of whom the degree of power
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