| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Rivers to the Sea by Sara Teasdale: Here on the street as strangers do,
Children of chance we were, who passed
The door of heaven and never knew.
IMMORTAL
So soon my body will have gone
Beyond the sound and sight of men,
And tho' it wakes and suffers now,
Its sleep will be unbroken then;
But oh, my frail immortal soul
That will not sleep forevermore,
A leaf borne onward by the blast,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from At the Earth's Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs: disappeared beneath the surface and after it went the
eyes of her victim--only a slow ripple widened toward
the shores to mark where the two vanished.
For a time all was silence within the temple. The slaves
were motionless in terror. The Mahars watched the surface
of the water for the reappearance of their queen,
and presently at one end of the tank her head rose
slowly into view. She was backing toward the surface,
her eyes fixed before her as they had been when she
dragged the helpless girl to her doom.
And then to my utter amazement I saw the forehead
At the Earth's Core |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Camille by Alexandre Dumas: submit to on the part of those whom they see every day.
To answer them properly, one requires a certain knack, and I had
not had the opportunity of acquiring it; besides, the idea that I
had formed of Marguerite accentuated the effects of her mockery.
Nothing that dame from her was indifferent to me. I rose to my
feet, saying in an altered voice, which I could not entirely
control:
"If that is what you think of me, madame, I have only to ask your
pardon for my indiscretion, and to take leave of you with the
assurance that it shall not occur again."
Thereupon I bowed and quitted the box. I had scarcely closed the
Camille |
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 Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: together, we may find what we seek.
ALCIBIADES: I am attending, Socrates, to the best of my power.
SOCRATES: We are agreed, then, that every form of ophthalmia is a disease,
but not every disease ophthalmia?
ALCIBIADES: We are.
SOCRATES: And so far we seem to be right. For every one who suffers from
a fever is sick; but the sick, I conceive, do not all have fever or gout or
ophthalmia, although each of these is a disease, which, according to those
whom we call physicians, may require a different treatment. They are not
all alike, nor do they produce the same result, but each has its own
effect, and yet they are all diseases. May we not take an illustration
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