| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare: Or if I liue, is it not very like,
The horrible conceit of death and night,
Together with the terror of the place,
As in a Vaulte, an ancient receptacle,
Where for these many hundred yeeres the bones
Of all my buried Auncestors are packt,
Where bloody Tybalt, yet but greene in earth,
Lies festring in his shrow'd, where as they say,
At some houres in the night, Spirits resort:
Alacke, alacke, is it not like that I
So early waking, what with loathsome smels,
Romeo and Juliet |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Redheaded Outfield by Zane Grey: ball cut the plate.
``Ho! Ho!'' yelled the Quakers.
The Rube's next one was his out curve. It
broke toward the corner of the plate and would
have been a strike had not Berne popped it up.
Callopy, the second hitter, faced the Rube, and
he, too, after the manner of ball players, made
some remark meant only for the Rube's ears.
Callopy was a famous waiter. He drove more
pitchers mad with his implacable patience than
any hitter in the league. The first one of the
The Redheaded Outfield |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Middlemarch by George Eliot: looking at Mr. Wrench, "the physicians have their toes trodden
on more than we have. If you come to dignity it is a question
for Minchin and Sprague."
"Does medical jurisprudence provide nothing against these infringements?"
said Mr. Hackbutt, with a disinterested desire to offer his lights.
"How does the law stand, eh, Hawley?"
"Nothing to be done there," said Mr. Hawley. "I looked into
it for Sprague. You'd only break your nose against a damned
judge's decision."
"Pooh! no need of law," said Mr. Toller. "So far as practice is
concerned the attempt is an absurdity. No patient will like it--
Middlemarch |
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 Captain Stormfield by Mark Twain: get any; they couldn't understand my language, and I could not
understand theirs. I got dreadfully lonesome. I was so down-
hearted and homesick I wished a hundred times I never had died. I
turned back, of course. About noon next day, I got back at last
and was on hand at the booking-office once more. Says I to the
head clerk -
"I begin to see that a man's got to be in his own Heaven to be
happy."
"Perfectly correct," says he. "Did you imagine the same heaven
would suit all sorts of men?"
"Well, I had that idea - but I see the foolishness of it. Which
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