| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin: virtuous who wish'd to be happy even in this world; and I should,
from this circumstance (there being always in the world a number
of rich merchants, nobility, states, and princes, who have need
of honest instruments for the management of their affairs,
and such being so rare), have endeavored to convince young persons
that no qualities were so likely to make a poor man's fortune
as those of probity and integrity.
My list of virtues contain'd at first but twelve; but a Quaker
friend having kindly informed me that I was generally thought proud;
that my pride show'd itself frequently in conversation; that I
was not content with being in the right when discussing any point,
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin |
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 Oakdale Affair by Edgar Rice Burroughs: barn the rosy flare of a genial light which appeared to
announce in all but human terms that man, red blooded
and hospitable, forgathered within. No growling dogs,
no bulking bulls contested the short stretch of weed
grown ground between the road and the disintegrat-
ing structure; and presently two wide, brown eyes were
peering through a crack in the wall of the abandoned
building. What they saw was a small fire built upon
the earth floor in the center of the building and around
the warming blaze the figures of six men. Some reclined
at length upon old straw; others squatted, Turk fash-
The Oakdale Affair |
