| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Twilight Land by Howard Pyle: all the lights went out and everything was as dark as pitch--not
a spark, not a glimmer anywhere. And, just as suddenly, all the
sound of music and dancing and merrymaking ceased, and everybody
began to wail and cry until it was enough to wring one's heart to
hear. Then, in the midst of all the wailing and crying, a door
was flung open, and in came six tall and terrible black men,
dressed all in black from top to toe, carrying each a flaming
torch; and by the light of the torches King Selim saw that all--the princes, the noblemen, the
dancing-girls--all lay on their
faces on the floor.
The six men took King Selim--who shuddered and shook with fear--by the arms, and marched him through
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Common Sense by Thomas Paine: be demolished, and scattered among the people whose right it is.
A government of our own is our natural right: And when a man seriously
reacts on the precariousness of human affairs, he will become convinced,
that it is infinitely wiser and safer, to form a constitution
of our own in a cool deliberate manner, while we have it in our power,
than to trust such an interesting event to time and chance.
If we omit it now, some [Thomas Anello otherwise Massanello
a fisherman of Naples, who after spiriting up his countrymen
in the public marketplace, against the oppressions of the Spaniards,
to whom the place was then subject prompted them to revolt,
and in the space of a day became king.] Massanello may hereafter arise,
Common Sense |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The First Men In The Moon by H. G. Wells: startle and alarm them and ourselves by some excessive stride. In front of
us was the short, thick-set being who had solved the problem of asking us
to get up, moving with gestures that seemed, almost all of them,
intelligible to us, inviting us to follow him. His spout-like face turned
from one of us to the other with a quickness that was clearly
interrogative. For a time, I say, we were taken up with these things.
But at last the great place that formed a background to our movements
asserted itself. It became apparent that the source of much, at least, of
the tumult of sounds which had filled our ears ever since we had recovered
from the stupefaction of the fungus was a vast mass of machinery in active
movement, whose flying and whirling parts were visible indistinctly over
The First Men In The Moon |
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 Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: exemplified. The air of the fireside withers out all the fine
wildings of the husband's heart. He is so comfortable and
happy that he begins to prefer comfort and happiness to
everything else on earth, his wife included. Yesterday he
would have shared his last shilling; to-day "his first duty is
to his family," and is fulfilled in large measure by laying
down vintages and husbanding the health of an invaluable
parent. Twenty years ago this man was equally capable of
crime or heroism; now he is fit for neither. His soul is
asleep, and you may speak without constraint; you will not
wake him. It is not for nothing that Don Quixote was a
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