| 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: impoverish thy fenced cities, wherein thou trustedst, with the sword.
JER 5:18 Nevertheless in those days, saith the LORD, I will not make a
full end with you.
JER 5:19 And it shall come to pass, when ye shall say, Wherefore doeth
the LORD our God all these things unto us? then shalt thou answer them,
Like as ye have forsaken me, and served strange gods in your land, so
shall ye serve strangers in a land that is not your's.
JER 5:20 Declare this in the house of Jacob, and publish it in Judah,
saying,
JER 5:21 Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding;
which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not:
King James Bible |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Deserted Woman by Honore de Balzac: natural at his age. Several times he made the circuit of the garden
walls, looking earnestly through every gap at the closed shutters or
open windows, hoping for some romantic chance, on which he founded
schemes for introducing himself into this unknown lady's presence,
without a thought of their impracticability. Morning after morning was
spent in this way to mighty purpose; but with each day's walk, that
vision of a woman living apart from the world, of love's martyr buried
in solitude, loomed larger in his thoughts, and was enshrined in his
soul. So Gaston de Nueil walked under the walls of Courcelles, and
some gardener's heavy footstep would set his heart beating high with
hope.
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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 Phaedrus by Plato: many err, as of that in which they do not err?
PHAEDRUS: He who made such a distinction would have an excellent
principle.
SOCRATES: Yes; and in the next place he must have a keen eye for the
observation of particulars in speaking, and not make a mistake about the
class to which they are to be referred.
PHAEDRUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Now to which class does love belong--to the debatable or to the
undisputed class?
PHAEDRUS: To the debatable, clearly; for if not, do you think that love
would have allowed you to say as you did, that he is an evil both to 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 Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy: morning before breakfast."
Bathsheba was momentarily relieved of that wayward
heaviness of the past twenty-four hours which had
quenched the vitality of youth in her without sub-
stituting the philosophy of maturer years, and the
resolved to go out and walk a little way. So when
breakfast was over, she put on her bonnet, and took
a direction towards the church. It was nine o'clock,
and the men having returned to work again from their
first meal, she was not likely to meet many of them in
the road. Knowing that Fanny had been laid in the
Far From the Madding Crowd |
