| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Mosses From An Old Manse by Nathaniel Hawthorne: Accordingly, one fine morning after paying my bill at the hotel,
and directing the porter to stow my luggage behind a coach, I
took my seat in the vehicle and set out for the station-house. It
was my good fortune to enjoy the company of a gentleman--one Mr.
Smooth-it-away--who, though he had never actually visited the
Celestial City, yet seemed as well acquainted with its laws,
customs, policy, and statistics, as with those of the City of
Destruction, of which he was a native townsman. Being, moreover,
a director of the railroad corporation and one of its largest
stockholders, he had it in his power to give me all desirable
information respecting that praiseworthy enterprise.
Mosses From An Old Manse |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy: answer such a question. Pierre put the same question to Prince Andrew.
"Why, so as not to lay waste the country we were abandoning to the
enemy," said Prince Andrew with venomous irony. "It is very sound: one
can't permit the land to be pillaged and accustom the troops to
marauding. At Smolensk too he judged correctly that the French might
outflank us, as they had larger forces. But he could not understand
this," cried Prince Andrew in a shrill voice that seemed to escape him
involuntarily: "he could not understand that there, for the first
time, we were fighting for Russian soil, and that there was a spirit
in the men such as I had never seen before, that we had held the
French for two days, and that that success had increased our
War and Peace |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Rape of Lucrece by William Shakespeare: Will tie the hearers to attend each line,
How Tarquin wronged me, I Collatine.
'Let my good name, that senseless reputation,
For Collatine's dear love be kept unspotted:
If that be made a theme for disputation,
The branches of another root are rotted,
And undeserved reproach to him allotted,
That is as clear from this attaint of mine
As I, ere this, was pure to Collatine.
'O unseen shame! invisible disgrace!
O unfelt sore! crest-wounding, private scar!
|
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 Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: "You readily discern the advantages of this invention,"
he was saying to Thuvan Dihn, who had accompanied
him to the landing-stage upon the palace roof to inspect
the compass and bid his young friend farewell.
A dozen officers of the court with several body servants
were grouped behind the jeddak and his guest,
eager listeners to the conversation--so eager on the
part of one of the servants that he was twice rebuked
by a noble for his forwardness in pushing himself
ahead of his betters to view the intricate mechanism of
the wonderful "controlling destination compass," as the
Thuvia, Maid of Mars |
