| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Complete Angler by Izaak Walton: And why should not
That, which authority
Prescribes, esteemed be
Advantage got ?
If th' prayer be good, the commoner the better,
Prayer in the Church's words, as well
As sense, of all prayers bears the bell.
And now, scholar, I think it will be time to repair to our angle-rods,
which we left in the water to fish for themselves; and you shall choose
which shall be yours; and it is an even lay, one of them catches.
And, let me tell you, this kind of fishing with a dead rod, and laying
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Lover's Complaint by William Shakespeare: With wit well blazon'd, smil'd, or made some moan.
'Lo! all these trophies of affections hot,
Of pensiv'd and subdued desires the tender,
Nature hath charg'd me that I hoard them not,
But yield them up where I myself must render,
That is, to you, my origin and ender:
For these, of force, must your oblations be,
Since I their altar, you enpatron me.
'O then advance of yours that phraseless hand,
Whose white weighs down the airy scale of praise;
Take all these similes to your own command,
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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 U. S. Project Trinity Report by Carl Maag and Steve Rohrer: In the summer of 1941, the British Government published a report
written by the Committee for Military Application of Uranium
Detonation (MAUD). This report stated that a nuclear weapon was
possible and concluded that its construction should begin immediately.
The MAUD report, and to a lesser degree the discovery of plutonium,
encouraged American leaders to think more seriously about developing a
nuclear weapon. On 6 December 1941, President Roosevelt appointed the
S-1 Committee to determine if the United States could construct a
nuclear weapon. Six months later, the S-1 Committee gave the
President its report, recommending a fast-paced program that would
cost up to $100 million and that might produce the weapon by July 1944
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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 Merry Men by Robert Louis Stevenson: for all that, his eyes kept following the Doctor about the room
with a thoughtful fixity of gaze. Desprez could not tell whether
he was fascinating the boy, or the boy was fascinating him. He
busied himself over the sick man: he put questions, he felt the
pulse, he jested, he grew a little hot and swore: and still,
whenever he looked round, there were the brown eyes waiting for his
with the same inquiring, melancholy gaze.
At last the Doctor hit on the solution at a leap. He remembered
the look now. The little fellow, although he was as straight as a
dart, had the eyes that go usually with a crooked back; he was not
at all deformed, and yet a deformed person seemed to be looking at
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