| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Works of Samuel Johnson by Samuel Johnson: by wickedness.
In the midst of this universal hurry, no man
ought to be so little influenced by example, or so
void of honest emulation, as to stand a lazy spectator
of incessant labour; or please himself with the
mean happiness of a drone, while the active swarms
are buzzing about him: no man is without some
quality, by the due application of which he might
deserve well of the world; and whoever he be that
has but little in his power, should be in haste to do
that little, lest he be confounded with him that can
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Snow Image by Nathaniel Hawthorne: if it had rested peacefully in the hollow of the great hand of
Providence. Every dwelling was distinctly visible; the little
spires of the two churches pointed upwards, and caught a
fore-glimmering of brightness from the sun-gilt skies upon their
gilded weather-cocks. The tavern was astir, and the figure of the
old, smoke-dried stage-agent, cigar in mouth, was seen beneath
the stoop. Old Graylock was glorified with a golden cloud upon
his head. Scattered likewise over the breasts of the surrounding
mountains, there were heaps of hoary mist, in fantastic shapes,
some of them far down into the valley, others high up towards the
summits, and still others, of the same family of mist or cloud,
The Snow Image |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates by Howard Pyle: different Levi from that other. Nevertheless, he was none the
less popular in the barroom of the tavern and at the country
store, where he was always the center of a group of loungers. His
nine years seemed to have been crowded full of the wildest of
wild adventures and happenings, as well by land as by sea, and,
given an appreciative audience, he would reel off his yarns by
the hour, in a reckless, devil-may-care fashion that set agape
even old sea dogs who had sailed the western ocean since
boyhood. Then he seemed always to have plenty of money, and he
loved to spend it at the tavern tap-room, with a lavishness that
was at once the wonder and admiration of gossips.
Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates |
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 St. Ives by Robert Louis Stevenson: impudence, and might annoy, the other was a practical confession of
guilt. Altogether, it was a good hour for me when the dusk began
to fall in earnest on the streets of Edinburgh, and the voice of an
early watchman bade me set forth.
I reached the neighbourhood of the cottage before seven; and as I
breasted the steep ascent which leads to the garden wall, I was
struck with surprise to hear a dog. Dogs I had heard before, but
only from the hamlet on the hillside above. Now, this dog was in
the garden itself, where it roared aloud in paroxysms of fury, and
I could hear it leaping and straining on the chain. I waited some
while, until the brute's fit of passion had roared itself out.
|
