| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbot: "Go to bed," said I, a little ruffled by this interruption:
"if you would talk less nonsense, you would remember more sense."
So my Grandson had disappeared in disgrace; and there I sat
by my Wife's side, endeavouring to form a retrospect of the year 1999
and of the possibilities of the year 2000, but not quite able
to shake off the thoughts suggested by the prattle of my bright
little Hexagon. Only a few sands now remained in the half-hour glass.
Rousing myself from my reverie I turned the glass Northward
for the last time in the old Millennium; and in the act,
I exclaimed aloud, "The boy is a fool."
Straightway I became conscious of a Presence in the room,
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Frances Waldeaux by Rebecca Davis: He left the house and struck across the country through
the woodland and farms. He did not know why he went--he
had to go. When he reached the Dunbar woods, he stood in
the thicket for hours, watching the house. She came out
at last and sat down on the steps to play with the dog.
Last night in her white, delicate beauty she had not
seemed real--she was far off, like an angel coming down
into his depths of misery.
But to-day she sat on the steps in her pretty blue gown,
and laughed and rolled Tramp over, and sung snatches of
songs, and was nothing but a foolish girl. For so many
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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 Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: horse and gun, and joined an armed band; another, seeking concealment,
drove off his cattle and carried off all the household stuff he could.
Occasionally, on the road, some were encountered who met their
visitors with arms in their hands; but the majority fled before their
arrival. All knew that it was hard to deal with the raging and warlike
throng known by the name of the Zaporozhian army; a body which, under
its independent and disorderly exterior, concealed an organisation
well calculated for times of battle. The horsemen rode steadily on
without overburdening or heating their horses; the foot-soldiers
marched only by night, resting during the day, and selecting for this
purpose desert tracts, uninhabited spots, and forests, of which there
Taras Bulba and Other Tales |
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 Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: All Japanese nouns being of this indefinite description, all require
auxiliary numerals. But as each one has its own appropriate numeral,
about which a mistake is unpardonable, it takes some little study
merely to master the etiquette of these handles to the names of
things.
Nouns are not inflected, their cases being expressed by postpositions,
which, as the name implies, follow, in becoming Japanese inversion,
instead of preceding the word they affect. To make up, nevertheless,
for any lack of perplexity due to an absence of inflections,
adjectives, en revanche, are most elaborately conjugated. Their
protean shapes are as long as they are numerous, representing not
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