| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Hamlet by William Shakespeare: Directly seasons him his Enemie.
But orderly to end, where I begun,
Our Willes and Fates do so contrary run,
That our Deuices still are ouerthrowne,
Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our owne.
So thinke thou wilt no second Husband wed.
But die thy thoughts, when thy first Lord is dead
Bap. Nor Earth to giue me food, nor Heauen light,
Sport and repose locke from me day and night:
Each opposite that blankes the face of ioy,
Meet what I would haue well, and it destroy:
Hamlet |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Aeneid by Virgil: And those they toss aloft, and these they rear:
The flames now launch'd, the feather'd arrows fly,
And clouds of missive arms obscure the sky.
Advancing to the front, the hero stands,
And, stretching out to heav'n his pious hands,
Attests the gods, asserts his innocence,
Upbraids with breach of faith th' Ausonian prince;
Declares the royal honor doubly stain'd,
And twice the rites of holy peace profan'd.
Dissenting clamors in the town arise;
Each will be heard, and all at once advise.
Aeneid |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: most valorous.
SOCRATES: Thank you, friend; and I hope that you observed Protagoras
bidding us be serious, as the text, 'Man is the measure of all things,' was
a solemn one; and he reproached us with making a boy the medium of
discourse, and said that the boy's timidity was made to tell against his
argument; he also declared that we made a joke of him.
THEODORUS: How could I fail to observe all that, Socrates?
SOCRATES: Well, and shall we do as he says?
THEODORUS: By all means.
SOCRATES: But if his wishes are to be regarded, you and I must take up the
argument, and in all seriousness, and ask and answer one another, for you
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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 $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain: Aleck forgave him with her eyes.
The grand interest, the supreme interest, came instantly to the
front again; nothing could keep it in the background many minutes
on a stretch. The couple took up the puzzle of the absence
of Tilbury's death-notice. They discussed it every which way,
more or less hopefully, but they had to finish where they began,
and concede that the only really sane explanation of the absence
of the notice must be--and without doubt was--that Tilbury was
not dead. There was something sad about it, something even a
little unfair, maybe, but there it was, and had to be put up with.
They were agreed as to that. To Sally it seemed a strangely
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