| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: with the dragon's fierceness in them, and knew better how to
use their strength and hardihood.
"Come!" said he. "You are sturdy fellows. Make yourselves
useful! Quarry some stones with those great swords of yours,
and help me to build a city."
The five soldiers grumbled a little, and muttered that it was
their business to overthrow cities, not to build them up. But
Cadmus looked at them with a stern eye, and spoke to them in a
tone of authority, so that they knew him for their master, and
never again thought of disobeying his commands. They set to
work in good earnest, and toiled so diligently, that, in a very
Tanglewood Tales |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dreams by Olive Schreiner: travel alone. When he presses somewhat to his burning heart, crying,
'Mine, mine, my own!' he shall hear a voice--'Renounce! renounce! this is
not thine!'"
"He shall succeed?"
He said, "He shall fail. When he runs with others they shall reach the
goal before him. For strange voices shall call to him and strange lights
shall beckon him, and he must wait and listen. And this shall be the
strangest: far off across the burning sands where, to other men, there is
only the desert's waste, he shall see a blue sea! On that sea the sun
shines always, and the water is blue as burning amethyst, and the foam is
white on the shore. A great land rises from it, and he shall see upon 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 Lady Susan by Jane Austen: arranged. They could none of them help perceiving that Sir James was no
Solomon; but I had positively forbidden Frederica complaining to Charles
Vernon or his wife, and they had therefore no pretence for interference;
though my impertinent sister, I believe, wanted only opportunity for doing
so. Everything, however, was going on calmly and quietly; and, though I
counted the hours of Sir James's stay, my mind was entirely satisfied with
the posture of affairs. Guess, then, what I must feel at the sudden
disturbance of all my schemes; and that, too, from a quarter where I had
least reason to expect it. Reginald came this morning into my dressing-room
with a very unusual solemnity of countenance, and after some preface
informed me in so many words that he wished to reason with me on the
Lady Susan |
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 Sophist by Plato: STRANGER: We are far from having exhausted the more exact thinkers who
treat of being and not-being. But let us be content to leave them, and
proceed to view those who speak less precisely; and we shall find as the
result of all, that the nature of being is quite as difficult to comprehend
as that of not-being.
THEAETETUS: Then now we will go to the others.
STRANGER: There appears to be a sort of war of Giants and Gods going on
amongst them; they are fighting with one another about the nature of
essence.
THEAETETUS: How is that?
STRANGER: Some of them are dragging down all things from heaven and from
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