| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from King James Bible: JER 15:18 Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which
refuseth to be healed? wilt thou be altogether unto me as a liar, and as
waters that fail?
JER 15:19 Therefore thus saith the LORD, If thou return, then will I
bring thee again, and thou shalt stand before me: and if thou take forth
the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth: let them return
unto thee; but return not thou unto them.
JER 15:20 And I will make thee unto this people a fenced brasen wall:
and they shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against
thee: for I am with thee to save thee and to deliver thee, saith the
LORD.
King James Bible |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Atheist's Mass by Honore de Balzac: for hearing, nor the sense of sight for seeing, and that the
solar plexus could supply their place without any possibility of
doubt--Desplein, thus finding two souls in man, confirmed his
atheism by this fact, though it is no evidence against God. This
man died, it is said, in final impenitence, as do, unfortunately,
many noble geniuses, whom God may forgive.
The life of this man, great as he was, was marred by many
meannesses, to use the expression employed by his enemies, who
were anxious to diminish his glory, but which it would be more
proper to call apparent contradictions. Envious people and fools,
having no knowledge of the determinations by which superior
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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 Montezuma's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard: CHAPTER XXXVII
VENGEANCE
During that meal Bernal Diaz spoke of our first meeting on the
causeway, and of how I had gone near to killing him in error,
thinking that he was Sarceda, and then he asked me what was my
quarrel with Sarceda.
In as few words as possible I told him the story of my life, of all
the evil that de Garcia or Sarceda had worked upon me and mine, and
of how it was through him that I was in this land that day. He
listened amazed.
'Holy Mother!' he said at length, 'I always knew him for a villain,
Montezuma's Daughter |
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 Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin by Robert Louis Stevenson: church; and the speed of Captain may have come sometimes handy. At
an early age this unconventional parson married his cook, and by
her he had two daughters and one son. One of the daughters died
unmarried; the other imitated her father, and married
'imprudently.' The son, still more gallantly continuing the
tradition, entered the army, loaded himself with debt, was forced
to sell out, took refuge in the Marines, and was lost on the Dogger
Bank in the war-ship MINOTAUR. If he did not marry below him, like
his father, his sister, and a certain great-uncle William, it was
perhaps because he never married at all.
The second brother, Thomas, who was employed in the General Post-
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