| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn: Carmen started from sleep to find her heart throbbing so that the
couch shook with it. Night was growing gray; the door had just
been opened and slammed again. Through the rain-whipped panes
she discerned the passing shape of Feliu, making for the beach--a
broad and bearded silhouette, bending against the wind. Still
the waxen Virgin smiled her Mexican smile,--but now she was only
seven inches high; and her bead-glass eyes seemed to twinkle with
kindliness while the flame of the last expiring taper struggled
for life in the earthen socket at her feet.
III.
Rain and a blind sky and a bursting sea Feliu and his men, Miguel
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Common Sense by Thomas Paine: doth, nevertheless, disapprove of its being independent of the corrupt
and abandoned court of Britain, unless I say, ye can shew this,
how can ye on the ground of your principles, justify the exciting
and stirring up the people "firmly to unite in the abhorrence
of all such writings, and measures, as evidence a desire and design
to break off the happy connexion we have hitherto enjoyed,
with the kingdom of Great-Britain, and our just and necessary subordination
to the king, and those who are lawfully placed in authority under him."
What a slap of the face is here! the men, who in the very paragraph before,
have quietly and passively resigned up the ordering, altering,
and disposal of kings and governments, into the hands of God, are now,
Common Sense |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Moran of the Lady Letty by Frank Norris: Maybe it's because you are so unlike my kind of girl that--that
things are as they are with me. I don't know. It's a queer
situation. A month or so ago I was at a tea in San Francisco, and
now I'm aboard a shark-fishing schooner sinking in Magdalena Bay;
and I'm with a girl that--that--that I--well, I'm with you, and,
well, you know how it is--I might as well say it--I love you more
than I imagined I ever could love a girl."
Moran's frown came back to her forehead.
"I don't like that kind of talk," she said; "I am not used to it,
and I don't know how to take it. Believe me," she said with a
half laugh, "it's all wasted. I never could love a man. I'm not
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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 Charmides by Plato: No.
Do you remark, Critias, that in several of the examples which have been
recited the notion of a relation to self is altogether inadmissible, and in
other cases hardly credible--inadmissible, for example, in the case of
magnitudes, numbers, and the like?
Very true.
But in the case of hearing and sight, or in the power of self-motion, and
the power of heat to burn, this relation to self will be regarded as
incredible by some, but perhaps not by others. And some great man, my
friend, is wanted, who will satisfactorily determine for us, whether there
is nothing which has an inherent property of relation to self, or some
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