| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy: RESURRECTION
CHAPTER I.
MASLOVA IN PRISON.
Though hundreds of thousands had done their very best to
disfigure the small piece of land on which they were crowded
together, by paying the ground with stones, scraping away every
vestige of vegetation, cutting down the trees, turning away birds
and beasts, and filling the air with the smoke of naphtha and
coal, still spring was spring, even in the town.
The sun shone warm, the air was balmy; everywhere, where it did
not get scraped away, the grass revived and sprang up between the
Resurrection |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Eve and David by Honore de Balzac: So, strange coincidence! while Lucien was drawn into the great
machinery of journalism, where he was like to leave his honor and his
intelligence torn to shreds, David Sechard, at the back of his
printing-house, foresaw all the practical consequences of the
increased activity of the periodical press. He saw the direction in
which the spirit of the age was tending, and sought to find means to
the required end. He saw also that there was a fortune awaiting the
discoverer of cheap paper, and the event has justified his
clearsightedness. Within the last fifteen years, the Patent Office has
received more than a hundred applications from persons claiming to
have discovered cheap substances to be employed in the manufacture of
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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 The Land that Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs: such a longing in the human breast. It is full, it is
satisfying, it is ennobling. What wonderous strides toward
perfection the human race might have made if the first man had
evolved it and it had persisted until now as the creed of humanity."
"I don't like irony," she said; "it indicates a small soul."
"What other sort of soul, then, would you expect from `a comic
little figure hopping from the cradle to the grave'?" I inquired.
"And what difference does it make, anyway, what you like and what
you don't like? You are here for but an instant, and you mustn't
take yourself too seriously."
She looked up at me with a smile. "I imagine that I am frightened and
The Land that Time Forgot |
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 Eryxias by Platonic Imitator: wealth may be acquired, since by riches the value of a man is judged):--
When, I say, we are thus in earnest, and you, who agree in other respects,
fall to disputing about a matter of such moment, that is, about wealth, and
not merely whether it is black or white, light or heavy, but whether it is
a good or an evil, whereby, although you are now the dearest of friends and
kinsmen, the most bitter hatred may arise betwixt you, I must hinder your
dissension to the best of my power. If I could, I would tell you the
truth, and so put an end to the dispute; but as I cannot do this, and each
of you supposes that you can bring the other to an agreement, I am
prepared, as far as my capacity admits, to help you in solving the
question. Please, therefore, Critias, try to make us accept the doctrines
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