| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Republic by Plato: Certainly not, according to my way of thinking.
Yet, I said, that we may not be compelled to examine all such objections,
and prove at length that they are untrue, let us assume their absurdity,
and go forward on the understanding that hereafter, if this assumption turn
out to be untrue, all the consequences which follow shall be withdrawn.
Yes, he said, that will be the best way.
Well, I said, would you not allow that assent and dissent, desire and
aversion, attraction and repulsion, are all of them opposites, whether they
are regarded as active or passive (for that makes no difference in the fact
of their opposition)?
Yes, he said, they are opposites.
The Republic |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Grimm's Fairy Tales by Brothers Grimm: have a queen.' So messengers were sent far and wide, to seek for a
bride as beautiful as the late queen. But there was no princess in the
world so beautiful; and if there had been, still there was not one to
be found who had golden hair. So the messengers came home, and had had
all their trouble for nothing.
Now the king had a daughter, who was just as beautiful as her mother,
and had the same golden hair. And when she was grown up, the king
looked at her and saw that she was just like this late queen: then he
said to his courtiers, 'May I not marry my daughter? She is the very
image of my dead wife: unless I have her, I shall not find any bride
upon the whole earth, and you say there must be a queen.' When the
Grimm's Fairy Tales |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Call of the Wild by Jack London: Perrault?"
The courier shook his head dubiously. With four hundred miles of
trail still between him and Dawson, he could ill afford to have
madness break out among his dogs. Two hours of cursing and
exertion got the harnesses into shape, and the wound-stiffened
team was under way, struggling painfully over the hardest part of
the trail they had yet encountered, and for that matter, the
hardest between them and Dawson.
The Thirty Mile River was wide open. Its wild water defied the
frost, and it was in the eddies only and in the quiet places that
the ice held at all. Six days of exhausting toil were required to
|
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 Seraphita by Honore de Balzac: physical apparatus, the flexibility of his senses, and their fidelity
when brought into play. This man might contend with savages, and hear,
as they do, the tread of enemies in distant forests; he could follow a
scent in the air, a trail on the ground, or see on the horizon the
signal of a friend. His sleep was light, like that of all creatures
who will not allow themselves to be surprised. His body came quickly
into harmony with the climate of any country where his tempestuous
life conducted him. Art and science would have admired his
organization in the light of a human model. Everything about him was
symmetrical and well-balanced,--action and heart, intelligence and
will. At first sight he might be classed among purely instinctive
Seraphita |
