| 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: I'll mend it with a largess. Take your papers too,
And let me have them very well perfum'd;
For she is sweeter than perfume itself
To whom they go to. What will you read to her?
LUCENTIO.
Whate'er I read to her, I'll plead for you,
As for my patron, stand you so assur'd,
As firmly as yourself were still in place;
Yea, and perhaps with more successful words
Than you, unless you were a scholar, sir.
GREMIO.
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 The Ebb-Tide by Stevenson & Osbourne: 'Wait a bit,' said Davis, 'I'm out of my depth. How was this?
Do you mean to say you did it single-handed?'
'One did it single-handed,' said Attwater, 'because there was
nobody to help one.'
'By God, but you must be a holy terror!' cried the captain, in
a glow of admiration.
'One does one's best,' said Attwater.
'Well, now!' said Davis, 'I have seen a lot of driving in my
time and been counted a good driver myself; I fought my way,
third mate, round the Cape Horn with a push of packet rats
that would have turned the devil out of hell and shut the door
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac: humiliating distrust was the necessity of my acquiring methodical and
business-like habits. My father, however, was not sparing of money for
all the necessary expenses of my education and for the amusements of
Parisian life.
"His old friend was delighted to have a young man to guide through the
labyrinth into which I had entered. He was one of those men whose
natures lead them to docket their thoughts, feelings, and opinions
every whit as carefully as their papers. He would turn up last year's
memorandum book, and could tell in a moment what he had been doing a
twelvemonth since in this very month, day, and hour of the present
year. Life, for him, was a business enterprise, and he kept the books
|
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 A Legend of Montrose by Walter Scott: those who were still at the bottom to follow him, an arrow
whistled from the bow of one of the Children of the Mist, and
transfixed him with so fatal a wound, that, without a single
effort to save himself, he lost his balance, and fell headlong
from the cliff on which he stood, into the darkness below. The
crash of the boughs which received him, and the heavy sound of
his fall from thence to the ground, was followed by a cry of
horror and surprise, which burst from his followers. The
Children of the Mist, encouraged in proportion to the alarm this
first success had caused among the pursuers, echoed back the
clamour with a loud and shrill yell of exultation, and, showing
|
