| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Tanach: Genesis 19: 6 And Lot went out unto them to the door, and shut the door after him.
Genesis 19: 7 And he said: 'I pray you, my brethren, do not so wickedly.
Genesis 19: 8 Behold now, I have two daughters that have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes; only unto these men do nothing; forasmuch as they are come under the shadow of my roof.'
Genesis 19: 9 And they said: 'Stand back.' And they said: 'This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs play the judge; now will we deal worse with thee, than with them.' And they pressed sore upon the man, even Lot, and drew near to break the door.
Genesis 19: 10 But the men put forth their hand, and brought Lot into the house to them, and the door they shut.
Genesis 19: 11 And they smote the men that were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great; so that they wearied themselves to find the door.
Genesis 19: 12 And the men said unto Lot: 'Hast thou here any besides? son-in-law, and thy sons, and thy daughters, and whomsoever thou hast in the city; bring them out of the place;
Genesis 19: 13 for we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxed great before the LORD; and the LORD hath sent us to destroy it.'
Genesis 19: 14 And Lot went out, and spoke unto his sons-in-law, who married his daughters, and said: 'Up, get you out of this place; for the LORD will destroy the city.' But he seemed unto his sons 
The Tanach |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: with loss of his own time, and patient tormenting of the British
public in person of its representatives, got leave to give four
hundred pounds at once, and himself become answerable for the other
three! which the said public will doubtless pay him eventually, but
sulkily, and caring nothing about the matter all the while; only
always ready to cackle if any credit comes of it. Consider, I beg
of you, arithmetically, what this fact means. Your annual
expenditure for public purposes, (a third of it for military
apparatus,) is at least 50 millions. Now 700L. is to 50,000,000L.
roughly, as seven pence to two thousand pounds. Suppose, then, a
gentleman of unknown income, but whose wealth was to be conjectured
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The White Moll by Frank L. Packard: fear - that only a merciless, tigerish, unbridled fury had her in
its thrall. And she went on up, step after step, as Danglar spoke
again:
"There's nothing to it! The Sparrow there fell for the telephone
when Stevie played the doctor. And old Hayden-Bond of course grants
his prison-bird chauffeur's request to spend the night with his
mother, who the doctor says is taken worse, because the old guy
knows there is a mother who really is sick. Only Mr. Hayden-Bond,
and the police with him, will maybe figure it a little differently
in the morning when they find the safe looted, and that the Sparrow,
instead of ever going near the poor old dame, has flown the coop
|
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 La Grande Breteche by Honore de Balzac: "This reply was such an one as judges and attorneys call evasive.
Rosalie, as it seemed to me, held in this romantic affair the place of
the middle square of the chess-board: she was at the very centre of
the interest and of the truth; she appeared to me to be tied into the
knot of it. It was not a case for ordinary love-making; this girl
contained the last chapter of a romance, and from that moment all my
attentions were devoted to Rosalie. By dint of studying the girl, I
observed in her, as in every woman whom we make our ruling thought, a
variety of good qualities; she was clean and neat; she was handsome, I
need not say; she soon was possessed of every charm that desire can
lend to a woman in whatever rank of life. A fortnight after the
La Grande Breteche |
