| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Second Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: reasons why spring in the Jungle is called the Time of New Talk.
But that spring, as he told Bagheera, his stomach was changed
in him. Ever since the bamboo shoots turned spotty-brown he
had been looking forward to the morning when the smells should
change. But when the morning came, and Mor the Peacock, blazing
in bronze and blue and gold, cried it aloud all along the misty
woods, and Mowgli opened his mouth to send on the cry, the words
choked between his teeth, and a feeling came over him that
began at his toes and ended in his hair--a feeling of pure
unhappiness, so that he looked himself over to be sure that he
had not trod on a thorn. Mor cried the new smells, the other
The Second Jungle Book |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Extracts From Adam's Diary by Mark Twain: Three Months Later
The perplexity augments instead of diminishing. I sleep but little.
It has ceased from lying around, and goes about on its four legs
now. Yet it differs from the other four-legged animals in that
its front legs are unusually short, consequently this causes the
main part of its person to stick up uncomfortably high in the air,
and this is not attractive. It is built much as we are, but its
method of travelling shows that it is not of our breed. The short
front legs and long hind ones indicate that it is of the kangaroo
family, but it is a marked variation of the species, since the
true kangaroo hops, whereas this one never does. Still, it is a
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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 Statesman by Plato: contained in him, and executing, as far as he remembered them, the
instructions of his Father and Creator, more precisely at first, but
afterwords with less exactness. The reason of the falling off was the
admixture of matter in him; this was inherent in the primal nature, which
was full of disorder, until attaining to the present order. From God, the
constructor, the world received all that is good in him, but from a
previous state came elements of evil and unrighteousness, which, thence
derived, first of all passed into the world, and were then transmitted to
the animals. While the world was aided by the pilot in nurturing the
animals, the evil was small, and great the good which he produced, but
after the separation, when the world was let go, at first all proceeded
Statesman |
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 Pathology of Lying, Etc. by William and Mary Healy: As a young child the parents never thought this girl in any way
different from the rest of the family. As she grew older she has
been regarded as physically the most robust, but, as she stated
to us, she has done the poorest intellectual work and that has
often been a matter of family comment. The other children are
careful truth tellers.
The type of Janet's lying has been not only in the form of
falsifications about matters which directly concerned herself,
but also involved extensive manufacture of long stories,
phantasies. Meeting people she might give them extensive
accounts of the wealth and importance of her own family. She
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