| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Middlemarch by George Eliot: "May I go to the Hospital and tell Mr. Lydgate that you wish
to see him?" said Will.
"It would be quicker to send the carriage for him," said Dorothea,
"if you will be kind enough to give the message to the coachman."
Will was moving to the door when Dorothea, whose mind had flashed
in an instant over many connected memories, turned quickly and said,
"I will go myself, thank you. I wish to lose no time before getting
home again. I will drive to the Hospital and see Mr. Lydgate there.
Pray excuse me, Mrs. Lydgate. I am very much obliged to you."
Her mind was evidently arrested by some sudden thought, and she
left the room hardly conscious of what was immediately around her--
Middlemarch |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from I Have A Dream by Martin Luther King, Jr.: join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk
together as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted,
every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places
will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight,
and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall
see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the
South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain
of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to
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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 Damaged Goods by Upton Sinclair: "I know what I am going to do."
"And I know also," said the doctor, with a smile. "There is your
prescription. You are going to take it to the drugstore and have
it put up."
George took the prescription, mechanically, but whispered, "No,
sir."
"Yes, sir, you are going to do as everybody else does."
"No, because my situation is not that of everybody else. I know
what I am going to do."
Said the doctor: "Five times out of ten, in the chair where you
are sitting, people talk like that, perfectly sincerely. Each
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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 House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: afterwards, the political editor of a country newspaper. He had
subsequently travelled New England and the Middle States, as a
peddler, in the employment of a Connecticut manufactory of
cologne-water and other essences. In an episodical way he had
studied and practised dentistry, and with very flattering success,
especially in many of the factory-towns along our inland streams.
As a supernumerary official, of some kind or other, aboard a
packet-ship, he had visited Europe, and found means, before his
return, to see Italy, and part of France and Germany. At a later
period he had spent some months in a community of Fourierists.
Still more recently he had been a public lecturer on Mesmerism,
House of Seven Gables |
