| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: genius wrought its wonders, fails. There is only one thing which
can rouse the machine; not will, - that cannot reach it; nothing
but a ruinous agent, which hurries the wheels awhile and soon eats
out the heart of the mechanism. The dreaming faculties are always
the dangerous ones, because their mode of action can be imitated by
artificial excitement; the reasoning ones are safe, because they
imply continued voluntary effort.
I think you will find it true, that, before any vice can fasten on
a man, body, mind, or moral nature must be debilitated. The mosses
and fungi gather on sickly trees, not thriving ones; and the odious
parasites which fasten on the human frame choose that which is
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain: They had been hid in the unused gallery listening to
their own funeral sermon!
Aunt Polly, Mary, and the Harpers threw themselves
upon their restored ones, smothered them with kisses
and poured out thanksgivings, while poor Huck stood
abashed and uncomfortable, not knowing exactly what
to do or where to hide from so many unwelcoming eyes.
He wavered, and started to slink away, but Tom seized
him and said:
"Aunt Polly, it ain't fair. Somebody's got to be glad
to see Huck."
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Altar of the Dead by Henry James: liberality. She wasn't a person with whom, after all, one got on
so very fast: it had taken him months and months to learn her
name, years and years to learn her address. If she had looked, on
this reunion, so much older to him, how in the world did he look to
her? She had reached the period of life he had long since reached,
when, after separations, the marked clock-face of the friend we
meet announces the hour we have tried to forget. He couldn't have
said what he expected as, at the end of his waiting, he turned the
corner where for years he had always paused; simply not to pause
was a efficient cause for emotion. It was an event, somehow; and
in all their long acquaintance there had never been an event. This
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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 Salome by Oscar Wilde: bande d'ecarlate sur une tour d'ivoire. Elle est comme une pomme de
grenade coupee par un couteau d'ivoire. Les fleurs de grenade qui
fleurissent dans les jardins de Tyr et sont plus rouges que les
roses, ne sont pas aussi rouges. Les cris rouges des trompettes qui
annoncent l'arrivee des rois, et font peur e l'ennemi ne sont pas
aussi rouges. Ta bouche est plus rouge que les pieds de ceux qui
foulent le vin dans les pressoirs. Elle est plus rouge que les
pieds des colombes qui demeurent dans les temples et sont nourries
par les pretres. Elle est plus rouge que les pieds de celui qui
revient d'une foret ou il a tue un lion et vu des tigres dores. Ta
bouche est comme une branche de corail que des pecheurs ont trouvee
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