| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy: paper money prepared for use in Russia should be delivered as
quickly as possible and another that a Saxon should be shot, on whom a
letter containing information about the orders to the French army
had been found, Napoleon also gave instructions that the Polish
colonel who had needlessly plunged into the river should be enrolled
in the Legion d'honneur of which Napoleon was himself the head.
Quos vult perdere dementat.*
*Those whom (God) wishes to destroy he drives mad.
CHAPTER III
The Emperor of Russia had, meanwhile, been in Vilna for more than
a month. reviewing troops and holding maneuvers. Nothing was ready for
War and Peace |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom by William and Ellen Craft: fellow, who was sitting there--to look up at us very
suspiciously, and in a fierce tone of voice he said
to me, "Boy, do you belong to that gentleman?"
I quickly replied, "Yes, sir" (which was quite
correct). The tickets were handed out, and as my
master was paying for them the chief man said to
him, "I wish you to register your name here, sir,
and also the name of your nigger, and pay a dollar
duty on him."
My master paid the dollar, and pointing to the
hand that was in the poultice, requested the officer
Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Battle of the Books by Jonathan Swift: possess a good plentiful store of dirt and poison in your breast;
and, though I would by no means lesson or disparage your genuine
stock of either, yet I doubt you are somewhat obliged, for an
increase of both, to a little foreign assistance. Your inherent
portion of dirt does not fall of acquisitions, by sweepings exhaled
from below; and one insect furnishes you with a share of poison to
destroy another. So that, in short, the question comes all to
this: whether is the nobler being of the two, that which, by a
lazy contemplation of four inches round, by an overweening pride,
feeding, and engendering on itself, turns all into excrement and
venom, producing nothing at all but flybane and a cobweb; or that
|
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 Common Sense by Thomas Paine: go backward, or be perpetually quarrelling or ridiculously petitioning.
--WE are already greater than the king wishes us to be, and will he not
hereafter endeavour to make us less? To bring the matter to one point.
Is the power who is jealous of our prosperity, a proper power to govern us?
Whoever says No to this question, is an INDEPENDANT, for independancy
means no more, than, whether we shall make our own laws,
or whether the king, the greatest enemy this continent hath,
or can have, shall tell us "THERE SHALL BE NO LAWS BUT SUCH AS I LIKE."
But the king you will say has a negative in England; the people there
can make no laws without his consent. In point of right and good order,
there is something very ridiculous, that a youth of twenty-one
Common Sense |
