| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe: daily risk of being undone every time a glass of wine got into
his head.
But as to the purchase I got, and how entirely I stripped him,
she told me it please her wonderfully. 'Nay child,' says she,
'the usage may, for aught I know, do more to reform him than
all the sermons that ever he will hear in his life.' And if the
remainder of the story be true, so it did.
I found the next day she was wonderful inquisitive about this
gentleman; the description I had given her of him, his dress,
his person, his face, everything concurred to make her think
of a gentleman whose character she knew, and family too.
Moll Flanders |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from I Have A Dream by Martin Luther King, Jr.: the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial
injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the
moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro. This
sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not
pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and
equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning.
Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will
now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns
to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility
in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The
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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 Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates by Howard Pyle: she first began to speak about Captain Malyoe he knew what was
coming. But now that she had told him, he could say nothing, but
stood there staring across the ocean, his breath coming hot and
dry as ashes in his throat. She, poor thing, went on to say, in
a very low voice, that she had liked him from the very first
moment she had seen him, and had been very happy for these days,
and would always think of him as a dear friend who had been very
kind to her, who had so little pleasure in life, and so would
always remember him.
Then they were both silent, until at last Barnaby made shift to
say, though in a hoarse and croaking voice, that Captain Malyoe
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 The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll: It had somehow contrived to lose count,
And the only thing now was to rack its poor brains
By reckoning up the amount.
"Two added to one--if that could but be done,"
It said, "with one's fingers and thumbs!"
Recollecting with tears how, in earlier years,
It had taken no pains with its sums.
"The thing can be done," said the Butcher, "I think.
The thing must be done, I am sure.
The thing shall be done! Bring me paper and ink,
The best there is time to procure."
The Hunting of the Snark |
