| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain: wasn't no comfort -- I'd got to go up in the attic and
rip out awhile, every day, to git a taste in my mouth,
or I'd a died, Tom. The widder wouldn't let me
smoke; she wouldn't let me yell, she wouldn't let me
gape, nor stretch, nor scratch, before folks --" [Then
with a spasm of special irritation and injury] -- "And
dad fetch it, she prayed all the time! I never see such
a woman! I HAD to shove, Tom -- I just had to. And
besides, that school's going to open, and I'd a had to
go to it -- well, I wouldn't stand THAT, Tom. Looky-
here, Tom, being rich ain't what it's cracked up to be.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln: upon this continent a new nation: conceived in liberty, and
dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war. . .testing whether
that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated. . .
can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war.
We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place
for those who here gave their lives that this nation might live.
It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate. . .we cannot consecrate. . .
we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead,
who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power
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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 Othello by William Shakespeare: And I (of whom his eies had seene the proofe
At Rhodes, at Ciprus, and on others grounds
Christen'd, and Heathen) must be be-leed, and calm'd
By Debitor, and Creditor. This Counter-caster,
He (in good time) must his Lieutenant be,
And I (blesse the marke) his Mooreships Auntient
Rod. By heauen, I rather would haue bin his hangman
Iago. Why, there's no remedie.
'Tis the cursse of Seruice;
Preferment goes by Letter, and affection,
And not by old gradation, where each second
Othello |
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 Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac: furtively, at the walls; for he fully understood that if Cornelius
detected him, he would not allow so inquisitive a person to remain in
his house. He contented himself, therefore, by looking first at the
egg and then at the old woman, occasionally contemplating his future
master.
Louis XI.'s silversmith resembled that monarch. He had even acquired
the same gestures, as often happens where persons dwell together in a
sort of intimacy. The thick eyebrows of the Fleming almost covered his
eyes; but by raising them a little he could flash out a lucid,
penetrating, powerful glance, the glance of men habituated to silence,
and to whom the phenomenon of the concentration of inward forces has
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