| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy: secretly.
The countess, with a coldness her son had never seen in her
before, replied that he was of age, that Prince Andrew was marrying
without his father's consent, and he could do the same, but that she
would never receive that intriguer as her daughter.
Exploding at the word intriguer, Nicholas, raising his voice, told
his mother he had never expected her to try to force him to sell his
feelings, but if that were so, he would say for the last time....
But he had no time to utter the decisive word which the expression
of his face caused his mother to await with terror, and which would
perhaps have forever remained a cruel memory to them both. He had
War and Peace |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: to Alexandria. For Antony having become possessor of it by right of the
stronger, gave it to Cleopatra; and it remained at Alexandria for seven
hundred years. But we must not anticipate events.
Then there must be besides a Mouseion, a Temple of the Muses, with all
due appliances, in a vast building adjoining the palace itself, under
the very wing of royalty; and it must have porticos, wherein sages may
converse; lecture-rooms, where they may display themselves at their will
to their rapt scholars, each like a turkey-cock before his brood; and a
large dining-hall, where they may enjoy themselves in moderation, as
befits sages, not without puns and repartees, epigrams, anagrams, and
Attic salt, to be fatal, alas, to poor Diodorus the dialectician. For
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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 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe: willing to lose me, and expected great things of me, brought
me one day into company with a young woman and a fellow
that went for her husband, though as it appeared afterwards,
she was not his wife, but they were partners, it seems, in the
trade they carried on, and partners in something else. In short,
they robbed together, lay together, were taken together, and
at last were hanged together.
I came into a kind of league with these two by the help of my
governess, and they carried me out into three or four adventures,
where I rather saw them commit some coarse and unhandy
robberies, in which nothing but a great stock of impudence
Moll Flanders |
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 The Case of the Registered Letter by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: The high chiefs and commissioners grant a condescending permission
when Muller asks, "May I do this? ... or may I handle this case
this way?" both parties knowing all the while that it is a farce,
and that the department waits helpless until this humble little
man saves its honour by solving some problem before which its
intricate machinery has stood dazed and puzzled.
This call of the trail is something that is stronger than anything
else in Muller's mentality, and now and then it brings him into
conflict with the department, ... or with his own better nature.
Sometimes his unerring instinct discovers secrets in high places,
secrets which the Police Department is bidden to hush up and leave
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