| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: am kept by the parish, and your bills say you give the poor your help
for nothing.' 'Ay, good woman,' says the doctor, 'so I do, as I published
there. I give my advice to the poor for nothing, but not my physic.'
'Alas, sir!' says she, 'that is a snare laid for the poor, then; for you give
them advice for nothing; that is to say, you advise them gratis, to buy
your physic for their money; so does every shop-keeper with his
wares.' Here the woman began to give him ill words, and stood at his
door all that day, telling her tale to all the people that came, till the
doctor finding she turned away his customers, was obliged to call her
upstairs again, and give her his box of physic for nothing, which
perhaps, too, was good for nothing when she had it.
A Journal of the Plague Year |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini: candlebranch. A long moment he stood reading it, none heeding him.
Aline's eyes were all on Andre-Louis, full of wonder and
commiseration, whilst Andre-Louis was staring down, in stupefied
fascination, at his mother.
M. de La Tour d'Azyr read the letter slowly through. Then very
quietly he replaced it. His next concern, being the product of
an artificial age sternly schooled in the suppression of emotion,
was to compose himself. Then he stepped back to Mme. de Plougastel's
side and stooped to raise her.
"Therese," he said.
Obeying, by instinct, the implied command, she made an effort to
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Apology by Plato: sons will all be utterly ruined by listening to my words--if you say to me,
Socrates, this time we will not mind Anytus, and you shall be let off, but
upon one condition, that you are not to enquire and speculate in this way
any more, and that if you are caught doing so again you shall die;--if this
was the condition on which you let me go, I should reply: Men of Athens, I
honour and love you; but I shall obey God rather than you, and while I have
life and strength I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of
philosophy, exhorting any one whom I meet and saying to him after my
manner: You, my friend,--a citizen of the great and mighty and wise city
of Athens,--are you not ashamed of heaping up the greatest amount of money
and honour and reputation, and caring so little about wisdom and truth and
|
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 Myths and Myth-Makers by John Fiske: of the Irish Celts, p. 123.
This mermaid's cap has contributed its quota to the
superstitions of witchcraft. An Irish story tells how Red
James was aroused from sleep one night by noises in the
kitchen. Going down to the door, he saw a lot of old women
drinking punch around the fireplace, and laughing and joking
with his housekeeper. When the punchbowl was empty, they all
put on red caps, and singing
"By yarrow and rue, And my red cap too,
Hie me over to England,"
they flew up chimney. So Jimmy burst into the room, and seized
Myths and Myth-Makers |
