| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Paradise Lost by John Milton: Before my Judge; either to undergo
Myself the total crime, or to accuse
My other self, the partner of my life;
Whose failing, while her faith to me remains,
I should conceal, and not expose to blame
By my complaint: but strict necessity
Subdues me, and calamitous constraint;
Lest on my head both sin and punishment,
However insupportable, be all
Devolved; though should I hold my peace, yet thou
Wouldst easily detect what I conceal.--
Paradise Lost |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Apology by Plato: those other things about which you hear me examining myself and others, is
the greatest good of man, and that the unexamined life is not worth living,
you are still less likely to believe me. Yet I say what is true, although
a thing of which it is hard for me to persuade you. Also, I have never
been accustomed to think that I deserve to suffer any harm. Had I money I
might have estimated the offence at what I was able to pay, and not have
been much the worse. But I have none, and therefore I must ask you to
proportion the fine to my means. Well, perhaps I could afford a mina, and
therefore I propose that penalty: Plato, Crito, Critobulus, and
Apollodorus, my friends here, bid me say thirty minae, and they will be the
sureties. Let thirty minae be the penalty; for which sum they will be
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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 Moral Emblems by Robert Louis Stevenson: Above the iron hill,
The topsy-turvy, tumble-down,
Yet habitable mill.
Still as the ringing saws advance
To slice the humming deal,
All day the pallid miller hears
The thunder of the wheel.
He hears the river plunge and roar
As roars the angry mob;
He feels the solid building quake,
The trusty timbers throb.
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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 The Riverman by Stewart Edward White: made now."
Taylor shook his head doubtfully.
"I don't see how you figure it," he objected. "We have more timber
than we can use in the East. Why should we go several thousand
miles west for the same thing?"
"When our timber gives out, then we'll HAVE to go west," said Orde.
Taylor laughed.
"Laugh all you please," rejoined Orde, "but I tell you Michigan and
Wisconsin pine is doomed. Twenty or thirty years from now there
won't be any white pine for sale."
"Nonsense!" objected Taylor. "You're talking wild. We haven't even
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