| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from At the Sign of the Cat & Racket by Honore de Balzac: you." (The young man looked up quickly.) "You know all the secrets of
the cash-box. For the last two years I have told you almost all my
concerns. I have sent you to travel in our goods. In short, I have
nothing on my conscience as regards you. But you--you have a soft
place, and you have never breathed a word of it." Joseph Lebas
blushed. "Ah, ha!" cried Guillaume, "so you thought you could deceive
an old fox like me? When you knew that I had scented the Lecocq
bankruptcy?"
"What, monsieur?" replied Joseph Lebas, looking at his master as
keenly as his master looked at him, "you knew that I was in love?"
"I know everything, you rascal," said the worthy and cunning old
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from King James Bible: man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? and still he holdeth fast
his integrity, although thou movedst me against him, to destroy him
without cause.
JOB 2:4 And Satan answered the LORD, and said, Skin for skin, yea, all
that a man hath will he give for his life.
JOB 2:5 But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh,
and he will curse thee to thy face.
JOB 2:6 And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thine hand; but
save his life.
JOB 2:7 So went Satan forth from the presence of the LORD, and smote
Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown.
King James Bible |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau: is not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize.
What makes this duty the more urgent is that fact that the
country so overrun is not our own, but ours is the invading army.
Paley, a common authority with many on moral questions,
in his chapter on the "Duty of Submission to Civil
Government," resolves all civil obligation into expediency;
and he proceeds to say that "so long as the interest of the
whole society requires it, that it, so long as the established
government cannot be resisted or changed without public
inconveniencey, it is the will of God. . .that the
established government be obeyed--and no longer. This
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience |
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 Rescue by Joseph Conrad: impossible landscape. She hurried on to catch up with him but a
throng of barbarians with enormous turbans came between them at
the last moment and she lost sight of him forever in the flurry
of a ghastly sand-storm. What frightened her most was that she
had not been able to see his face. It was then that she began to
cry over her hard fate. When she woke up the tears were still
rolling down her cheeks and she perceived in the light of the
deck-lamp d'Alcacer arrested a little way off.
"Did you have to speak to me?" she asked.
"No," said d'Alcacer. "You didn't give me time. When I came as
far as this I fancied I heard you sobbing. It must have been a
The Rescue |
