| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death by Patrick Henry: In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and
reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free--
if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which
we have been so long contending--if we mean not basely to abandon the noble
struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged
ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest
shall be obtained--we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight!
An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left us!
They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable
an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week,
or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: is a regular Italian."
"Money apart," Andoche Finot put in sourly.
"Oh, come, come," said Bixiou coaxingly; "after what we have just been
saying, will you venture to blame poor Rastignac for living at the
expense of the firm of Nucingen, for being installed in furnished
rooms precisely as La Torpille was once installed by our friend des
Lupeaulx? You would sink to the vulgarity of the Rue Saint-Denis!
First of all, 'in the abstract,' as Royer-Collard says, the question
may abide the Kritik of Pure Reason; as for the impure reason----"
"There he goes!" said Finot, turning to Blondet.
"But there is reason in what he says," exclaimed Blondet. "The problem
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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 To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: himself tragically backwards into the bitter waters of depair. Such a
gift he had for gesture. He looked like a king in exile. Doggedly
James said yes. Cam stumbled more wretchedly. Yes, oh, yes, they'd
both be ready, they said. And it struck her, this was tragedy--not
palls, dust, and the shroud; but children coerced, their spirits
subdued. James was sixteen, Cam, seventeen, perhaps. She had looked
round for some one who was not there, for Mrs Ramsay, presumably. But
there was only kind Mrs Beckwith turning over her sketches under the
lamp. Then, being tired, her mind still rising and falling with the
sea, the taste and smell that places have after long absence possessing
her, the candles wavering in her eyes, she had lost herself and gone
To the Lighthouse |
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 Poor and Proud by Oliver Optic: day she engaged her to come immediately after dinner.
I need not detail the manner in which Katy's trade kept
increasing. In a fortnight she had more than a dozen girls
employed in selling candy. She was actually making a wholesale
business of it, and no longer traveled about the streets herself.
By the first of December, Mrs. Redburn had so far recovered her
health as to be able to take charge of the manufacturing part of
the business, and Katy was permitted to go to school, though she
supplied the girls in the morning and at noon, and settled all
their accounts.
One day she received a call from Michael, Mrs. Gordon's man,
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