| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare: GRUMIO.
Nay, 'tis no matter, sir, what he 'leges in Latin. If this
be not a lawful cause for me to leave his service, look you, sir,
he bid me knock him and rap him soundly, sir: well, was it fit for
a servant to use his master so; being, perhaps, for aught I see,
two-and-thirty, a pip out?
Whom would to God I had well knock'd at first,
Then had not Grumio come by the worst.
PETRUCHIO.
A senseless villain! Good Hortensio,
I bade the rascal knock upon your gate,
The Taming of the Shrew |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Burning Daylight by Jack London: much an unusual type of man. Young yet, barely thirty-six,
eminently handsome, magnificently strong, almost bursting with a
splendid virility, his free trail-stride, never learned on
pavements, and his black eyes, hinting of great spaces and
unwearied with the close perspective of the city dwellers, drew
many a curious and wayward feminine glance. He saw, grinned
knowingly to himself, and faced them as so many dangers, with a
cool demeanor that was a far greater personal achievement than
had they been famine, frost, or flood.
He had come down to the States to play the man's game, not the
woman's game; and the men he had not yet learned. They struck
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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 Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner: she looked at him, at the man, Gregory Rose, with attention. A vague
elation filled him. He clinched his fist tight to think of some good idea
he might express to her; but of all those profound things he had pictured
himself as saying to her, when he sat alone in the daub-and-wattle house,
not one came. He said, at last:
"These Boer dances are very low things;" and then, as soon as it had gone
from him, he thought it was not a clever remark, and wished it back.
Before Lyndall replied Em looked in at the door.
"Oh, come," she said; "they are going to have the cushion-dance. I do not
want to kiss any of these fellows. Take me quickly."
She slipped her hand into Gregory's arm.
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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 The Altar of the Dead by Henry James: They felt it was coming very near to utter their thought at all.
The word "they" expressed enough; it limited the mention, it had a
dignity of its own, and if, in their talk, you had heard our
friends use it, you might have taken them for a pair of pagans of
old alluding decently to the domesticated gods. They never knew -
at least Stransom never knew - how they had learned to be sure
about each other. If it had been with each a question of what the
other was there for, the certitude had come in some fine way of its
own. Any faith, after all, has the instinct of propagation, and it
was as natural as it was beautiful that they should have taken
pleasure on the spot in the imagination of a following. If the
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