| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe: He was a blacksmith, and, of course, very necessary; and I thought
and said, at the time, that Mammy and he had better give each other
up, as it wasn't likely to be convenient for them ever to live
together again. I wish, now, I'd insisted on it, and married Mammy
to somebody else; but I was foolish and indulgent, and didn't want
to insist. I told Mammy, at the time, that she mustn't ever expect
to see him more than once or twice in her life again, for the air
of father's place doesn't agree with my health, and I can't go
there; and I advised her to take up with somebody else; but no--
she wouldn't. Mammy has a kind of obstinacy about her, in spots,
that everybody don't see as I do."
Uncle Tom's Cabin |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Extracts From Adam's Diary by Mark Twain: The perplexity augments instead of diminishing. I sleep but little.
It has ceased from lying around, and goes about on its four legs
now. Yet it differs from the other four-legged animals in that
its front legs are unusually short, consequently this causes the
main part of its person to stick up uncomfortably high in the air,
and this is not attractive. It is built much as we are, but its
method of travelling shows that it is not of our breed. The short
front legs and long hind ones indicate that it is of the kangaroo
family, but it is a marked variation of the species, since the
true kangaroo hops, whereas this one never does. Still, it is a
curious and interesting variety, and has not been catalogued before.
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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 Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling: brother, who was always interested in plants and roots,
met the First Doctor of a Legion from the City of the
Legions, and he decided that he would be an Army
doctor. I do not think it is a profession for a well-born
man, but then - I'm not my brother. He went to Rome to
study medicine, and now he's First Doctor of a Legion in
Egypt - at Antinoe, I think, but I have not heard from him
for some time.
'My eldest brother came across a Greek philosopher,
and told my Father that he intended to settle down on the
estate as a farmer and a philosopher. You see,' - the
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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 Democracy In America, Volume 2 by Alexis de Toqueville: effect of closely binding every man to several of his
fellow-citizens. As the classes of an aristocratic people are
strongly marked and permanent, each of them is regarded by its
own members as a sort of lesser country, more tangible and more
cherished than the country at large. As in aristocratic
communities all the citizens occupy fixed positions, one above
the other, the result is that each of them always sees a man
above himself whose patronage is necessary to him, and below
himself another man whose co-operation he may claim. Men living
in aristocratic ages are therefore almost always closely attached
to something placed out of their own sphere, and they are often
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