| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Lamentable Tragedy of Locrine and Mucedorus by William Shakespeare: What, sirs! what mean you by these clamors made,
These outcries raised in our stately court?
STRUMBO.
Wild fire and pitch, wild fire and pitch.
THRASIMACHUS.
Villains, I say, tell us the cause hereof?
STRUMBO.
Wild fire and pitch, &c.
THRASIMACHUS.
Tell me, you villains, why you make this noise,
Or with my lance I will prick your bowels out.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers by Jonathan Swift: which I design to handle with all brevity, perspicuity, and
calmness: In this dispute, I am sensible the eyes not only of
England, but of all Europe, will be upon us; and the learned in
every country will, I doubt not, take part on that side, where
they find most appearance of reason and truth.
Without entering into criticisms of chronology about the hour of
his death, I shall only prove that Mr. Partridge is not alive.
And my first argument is thus: Above a thousand gentelmen having
bought his almanacks for this year, merely to find what he said
against me; at every line they read, they would lift up their
eyes, and cry out, betwixt rage and laughter, "They were sure no
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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 Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: what she told me before; that there is no foundation for my
suspicions, that it's absurd."
At that moment, when the revelation of everything was hanging
over him, there was nothing he expected so much as that she would
answer mockingly as before that his suspicions were absurd and
utterly groundless. So terrible to him was that he knew that now
he was ready to believe anything. But the expression of her face,
scared and gloomy, did not now promise even deception.
"Possibly I was mistaken," said he. "If so, I beg your pardon."
"No, you were not mistaken," she said deliberately, looking
desperately into his cold face. "You were not mistaken. I was,
Anna Karenina |
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 Adventure by Jack London: saddled our horses, but we had to be able ourselves to go out in
the paddock and rope our horses--"
"What do you mean by ROPE?" Sheldon asked.
"To lariat them, to lasso them. And Dad and Von timed us in the
saddling and made a most rigid examination of the result. It was
the same way with our revolvers and rifles. The house-boys always
cleaned them and greased them; but we had to learn how in order to
see that they did it properly. More than once, at first, one or
the other of us had our rifles taken away for a week just because
of a tiny speck of rust. We had to know how to build fires in the
driving rain, too, out of wet wood, when we camped out, which was
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