| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Koran: abomination; verily, they will not believe. Say, 'Is there any of your
associates who can produce a creature and then turn it back again?'
Say, 'God produces a creature, then turns it back again; how then
can ye lie?' Say, 'Is there any of your associates who guides unto the
truth?' Say, 'God guides unto the truth.' Is then He who guides unto
the truth more worthy to be followed, or he that guides not except
he be himself guided? What ails you then, how ye judge?
But most of them follow only suspicion; verily, suspicion does not
avail against the truth. at all verily, God knows what they do.
This Koran could not have been devised by any beside God; but it
verifies that which was before it, and details the Book- there is no
The Koran |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Marriage Contract by Honore de Balzac: He felt it impossible to endure the overthrow of their mutual hopes.
"Yes, all can be settled," said Mathias, hastily interposing.
Like a general who, in a moment, upsets the plans skilfully laid and
prepared by the enemy, the old notary, enlightened by that genius
which presides over notaries, saw an idea, capable of saving the
future of Paul and his children, unfolding itself in legal form before
his eyes.
Maitre Solonet, who perceived no other way out of these irreconcilable
difficulties than the resolution with which Paul's love inspired him,
and to which this conflict of feelings and thwarted interests had
brought him, was extremely surprised at the sudden exclamation of his
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: personal distinctions which Raeburn was so quick to seize. He
was a born painter of portraits. He looked people shrewdly
between the eyes, surprised their manners in their face, and
had possessed himself of what was essential in their character
before they had been many minutes in his studio. What he was
so swift to perceive, he conveyed to the canvas almost in the
moment of conception. He had never any difficulty, he said,
about either hands or faces. About draperies or light or
composition, he might see room for hesitation or afterthought.
But a face or a hand was something plain and legible. There
were no two ways about it, any more than about the person's
|
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 Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte: would follow them through the grounds, and too often came suddenly
upon them while they were dabbling in the forbidden well, talking
to the coachman in the stables, or revelling in the filth of the
farm-yard - and I, meanwhile, wearily standing, by, having
previously exhausted my energy in vain attempts to get them away.
Often, too, he would unexpectedly pop his head into the schoolroom
while the young people were at meals, and find them spilling their
milk over the table and themselves, plunging their fingers into
their own or each other's mugs, or quarrelling over their victuals
like a set of tiger's cubs. If I were quiet at the moment, I was
conniving at their disorderly conduct; if (as was frequently the
Agnes Grey |
