| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Middlemarch by George Eliot: They would find out that the blood in his veins was as free from
the taint of meanness as theirs.
CHAPTER LXI.
"Inconsistencies," answered Imlac, "cannot both be right, but imputed
to man they may both be true."--Rasselas.
The same night, when Mr. Bulstrode returned from a journey to
Brassing on business, his good wife met him in the entrance-hall
and drew him into his private sitting-room.
"Nicholas," she said, fixing her honest eyes upon him anxiously,
"there has been such a disagreeable man here asking for you--it has
made me quite uncomfortable."
Middlemarch |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: reached a high degree of ecstasy, or a great perfection of vision."
I know--though my remembrance is now vague--that Lambert, by following
the results of Mind and Will step by step, after he had established
their laws, accounted for a multitude of phenomena which, till then,
had been regarded with reason as incomprehensible. Thus wizards, men
possessed with second sight, and demoniacs of every degree--the
victims of the Middle Ages--became the subject of explanations so
natural, that their very simplicity often seemed to me the seal of
their truth. The marvelous gifts which the Church of Rome, jealous of
all mysteries, punished with the stake, were, in Louis' opinion, the
result of certain affinities between the constituent elements of
Louis Lambert |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The United States Constitution: which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been
increased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the
United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance
in Office.
Section 7. All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the
House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with
Amendments as on other Bills.
Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and
the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the
President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it,
but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House
The United States Constitution |
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 A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: time, and consequently their breath, their sweat, their very clothes,
were contagious for many days before.
This occasioned a vast variety of cases which physicians would have
much more opportunity to remember than I; but some came within
the compass of my observation or hearing, of which I shall name a few.
A certain citizen who had lived safe and untouched till the month of
September, when the weight of the distemper lay more in the city than
it had done before, was mighty cheerful, and something too bold (as I
think it was) in his talk of how secure he was, how cautious he had
been, and how he had never come near any sick body. Says another
citizen, a neighbour of his, to him one day, 'Do not be too confident,
A Journal of the Plague Year |
