| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne: -- the people's victim and lifelong bond-slave, as they fancied
her, might say to them. "Yet a little while, and she will be
beyond your reach! A few hours longer and the deep, mysterious
ocean will quench and hide for ever the symbol which ye have
caused to burn on her bosom!" Nor were it an inconsistency too
improbable to be assigned to human nature, should we suppose a
feeling of regret in Hester's mind, at the moment when she was
about to win her freedom from the pain which had been thus deeply
incorporated with her being. Might there not be an irresistible
desire to quaff a last, long, breathless draught of the cup of
wormwood and aloes, with which nearly all her years of womanhood
The Scarlet Letter |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Oedipus Trilogy by Sophocles: and heard himself the weird declared before to Laius. Wherefore he
fled from what he deemed his father's house and in his flight he
encountered and unwillingly slew his father Laius. Arriving at Thebes
he answered the riddle of the Sphinx and the grateful Thebans made
their deliverer king. So he reigned in the room of Laius, and
espoused the widowed queen. Children were born to them and Thebes
prospered under his rule, but again a grievous plague fell upon the
city. Again the oracle was consulted and it bade them purge
themselves of blood-guiltiness. Oedipus denounces the crime of which
he is unaware, and undertakes to track out the criminal. Step by
step it is brought home to him that he is the man. The closing scene
Oedipus Trilogy |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Memorabilia by Xenophon: gold and silver to be the means of making men better, but that the
thoughts[16] of the wise alone enrich with virtue their possessions.
[16] Lit. "gnomes," maxims, sententiae. Cf. Aristot. "Rhet." ii. 21.
And Euthydemus was glad when he heard that saying, for, thought he to
himself, "In the eyes of Socrates I am on the high road to the
acquisition of wisdom." But the latter, perceiving him to be pleased
with the praise, continued.
Soc. And what is it in which you desire to excel, Euthydemus, that you
collect books?
And when Euthydemus was silent, considering what answer he should
make, Socrates added: Possibly you want to be a great doctor? Why, the
The Memorabilia |
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 The Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton: admit it.
"Well, then--may I suggest that, to bring matters to a point,
the best way would be for you to write to him?"
She recoiled slightly. It had never occurred to her that the
lawyers would not "manage it" without her intervention.
"Write to him ... but what about?"
"Well, expressing your wish ... to recover your freedom ....
The rest, I assume," said the young lawyer, "may be left to Mr.
Lansing."
She did not know exactly what he meant, and was too much
perturbed by the idea of having to communicate with Nick to
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