| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Common Sense by Thomas Paine: the Delaware, and laid the city of Philadelphia under instant contribution,
for what sum he pleased; and the same might have happened to other places.
Nay, any daring fellow, in a brig of fourteen or sixteen guns might have
robbed the whole continent, and carried off half a million of money.
These are circumstances which demand our attention, and point out
the necessity of naval protection.
Some, perhaps, will say, that after we have made it up Britain,
she will protect us. Can we be so unwise as to mean,
that she shall keep a navy in our harbours for that purpose?
Common sense will tell us, that the power which hath endeavoured
to subdue us, is of all others the most improper to defend us.
Common Sense |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Village Rector by Honore de Balzac: of grace. My mother could not conceive that a man could espouse a
church. Nevertheless, seeing me happy, with a cloudless brow, she grew
happier herself. After I was ordained I came to the Limousin to visit
one of my paternal relations, who chanced to speak to me of the then
condition of Montegnac. A thought darted into my mind with the
vividness of lightning, and I said to myself inwardly: 'Here is thy
vineyard!' I came here, and you see, monsieur, that my history is very
simple and uneventful."
At this instant Limoges came into sight, bathed in the last rays of
the setting sun. When the women saw it they could not restrain their
tears; they wept aloud.
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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 Glasses by Henry James: me at last as inane. One moved with her, moreover, among phenomena
mismated and unrelated; nothing in her talk ever matched anything
out of it. Lord Iffield was dying of love for her, but his family
was leading him a life. His mother, horrid woman, had told some
one that she would rather he should be swallowed by a tiger than
marry a girl not absolutely one of themselves. He had given his
young friend unmistakable signs, but was lying low, gaining time:
it was in his father's power to be, both in personal and in
pecuniary ways, excessively nasty to him. His father wouldn't last
for ever--quite the contrary; and he knew how thoroughly, in spite
of her youth, her beauty and the swarm of her admirers, some of
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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 Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner: glass, that hurt. He had sat there for half an hour, and he dared not go
back to the close house.
He felt horribly lonely. There was not one thing so wicked as he in all
the world, and he knew it. He folded his arms and began to cry--not aloud;
he sobbed without making any sound, and his tears left scorched marks where
they fell. He could not pray; he had prayed night and day for so many
months; and tonight he could not pray. When he left off crying, he held
his aching head with his brown hands. If one might have gone up to him and
touched him kindly; poor, ugly little thing! Perhaps his heart was almost
broken.
With his swollen eyes he sat there on a flat stone at the very top of the
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