| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Extracts From Adam's Diary by Mark Twain: Saturday
She fell in the pond yesterday, when she was looking at herself
in it, which she is always doing. She nearly strangled, and said
it was most uncomfortable. This made her sorry for the creatures
which live in there, which she calls fish, for she continues to
fasten names on to things that don't need them and don't come when
they are called by them, which is a matter of no consequence to
her, as she is such a numskull anyway; so she got a lot of them
out and brought them in last night and put them in my bed to keep
warm, but I have noticed them now and then all day, and I don't
see that they are any happier there than they were before, only
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: zeal and loyalty to those who labour for his delight that the
amateur grows worthy of the artist. And it should be kept in
mind that, not only in art, but in morals, Pepys rejoiced to
recognise his betters. There was not one speck of envy in
the whole human-hearted egotist.
RESPECTABILITY.
When writers inveigh against respectability, in the present
degraded meaning of the word, they are usually suspected of a
taste for clay pipes and beer cellars; and their performances
are thought to hail from the OWL'S NEST of the comedy. They
have something more, however, in their eye than the dulness
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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 The Koran: lord knows their craftiness!"'
He said, 'What was your design when ye desired Joseph for his
person? They said, 'God forbid! we know no bad of him.' Said the
wife of the prince, Now does the truth appear! I desired him for his
person and, verily, he is of those who tell the truth.'
'That' (said Joseph) 'was that he might know that I did not betray
him in his absence, and that God guides not the craft of those who
do betray! Yet I do not clear myself, for the soul is very urgent to
evil, save what my Lord has had mercy on; verily, my Lord is forgiving
and merciful!'
And the king said, 'Bring him to me. I will take him specially for
The Koran |
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 Lock and Key Library by Julian Hawthorne, Ed.: whole wide world. At last I spoke. "You have known of it all, I
suppose; of this curse that is in the world,--sin and suffering,
and what such words mean."
"Yes," he said, looking at me with wondering pity, "I am afraid
so."
"But have you known them as they are known to some,--agonized,
hopeless suffering, and sin that is all but inevitable? Some time
in your life probably you have realized that such things are: it
has come home to you, and to every one else, no doubt, except a few
ignorant girls such as I was yesterday. But there are some,--yes,
thousands and thousands,--who even now, at this moment, are feeling
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