| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Stories From the Old Attic by Robert Harris: Stewardship
A wise man approached three young men standing around idly.
"Here is a coin worth a hundred dollars," the wise man said to the
first youth. "What should I do with it?"
"Give it to me," he said at once.
"Rather than reward such selfishness and greed," responded the
wise man, "it would be better to throw the money into the sea." And
with this, the wise man threw the coin into the water. "Now," he
said to the second youth, "here is another coin. What should I do
with it?"
The second youth, feeling shrewd, answered, "Throw it into the sea."
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from U. S. Project Trinity Report by Carl Maag and Steve Rohrer: of two civilians who approached as close as 90 meters on 18 July, the
reentry personnel came no closer than 180 meters to ground zero. Of
these personnel, the individual who received the highest exposure
during the three days was an Army sergeant who received 15 roentgens.
During the same period, two civilians received 10 roentgens and 7.5
roentgens, respectively. All other personnel received exposures of 5
roentgens or less (1; 3).
After the "Going-In Board" was disbanded on 19 July, permission to
enter the ground zero area had to be obtained from Dr. Bainbridge or
one of his deputies. Many scientists entered the ground zero area
after 19 July to retrieve instruments or to perform experiments. 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 Tales of Unrest by Joseph Conrad: putting the bottles on the shelf, trying to fit with trembling hands
the covers on cardboard boxes. Whenever the real sense of what she had
heard emerged for a second from the haze of her thoughts she would
fancy that something had exploded in her brain without, unfortunately,
bursting her head to pieces--which would have been a relief. She blew
the candles out one by one without knowing it, and was horribly
startled by the darkness. She fell on a bench and began to whimper.
After a while she ceased, and sat listening to the breathing of her
daughter, whom she could hardly see, still and upright, giving no
other sign of life. She was becoming old rapidly at last, during those
minutes. She spoke in tones unsteady, cut about by the rattle of
Tales of Unrest |
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: untilled garden, absolutely motionless, and casting on those who
watched him a fixed gaze, the insupportable light of which froze them
with terror. If, by chance, he walked through the streets of Tours, he
seemed like a stranger in them; he knew not where he was, nor whether
the sun or the moon were shining. Often he would ask his way of those
who passed him, believing that he was still in Ghent, and seeming to
be in search of something lost.
The most perennial and the best materialized of human ideas, the idea
by which man reproduces himself by creating outside of himself the
fictitious being called Property, that mental demon, drove its steel
claws perpetually into his heart. Then, in the midst of this torture,
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