| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: the first instant is that it is impossible to take it all in, and
that one will have to reflect a great, great deal upon it.
This discovery, suddenly throwing light on all those families of
one or two children, which had hitherto been so incomprehensible
to her, aroused so many ideas, reflections, and contradictory
emotions, that she had nothing to say, and simply gazed with
wide-open eyes of wonder at Anna. This was the very thing she had
been dreaming of, but now learning that it was possible, she was
horrified. She felt that it was too simple a solution of too
complicated a problem.
"N'est-ce pas immoral?" was all she said, after a brief pause.
Anna Karenina |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne: The chest was securely fastened, and the Captain wrote an address on the lid,
in characters which must have belonged to Modern Greece.
This done, Captain Nemo pressed a knob, the wire of which communicated with
the quarters of the crew. Four men appeared, and, not without some trouble,
pushed the chest out of the saloon. Then I heard them hoisting it up the iron
staircase by means of pulleys.
At that moment, Captain Nemo turned to me.
"And you were saying, sir?" said he.
"I was saying nothing, Captain."
"Then, sir, if you will allow me, I will wish you good night."
Whereupon he turned and left the saloon.
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Second Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: gives to both North and South this terrible war, as the woe due
to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any
departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a
living God always ascribe to him? Fondly do we hope--fervently
do we pray--that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away.
Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by
the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil
shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn by the lash
shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said
three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, "The
judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
Second Inaugural Address |
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 A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo: instead of a comb, a short horn upon its head, which is thick and
round, and open at the top. The feitan favez, or devil's horse,
looks at a distance like a man dressed in feathers; it walks with
abundance of majesty, till it finds itself pursued, and then takes
wing, and flies away. But amongst all their birds there is none
more remarkable than the moroc, or honey-bird, which is furnished by
nature with a peculiar instinct or faculty of discovering honey.
They have here multitudes of bees of various kinds; some are tame,
like ours, and form their combs in hives. Of the wild ones, some
place their honey in hollow trees, others hide it in holes in the
ground, which they cover so carefully, that though they are commonly
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