| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Adventure by Jack London: to lie down and sleep, or die, when any task remained undone.
The boss-boys were called and given their orders to rope down the
hospital with its two additions. He remembered the spare anchor-
chain, new and black-painted, that hung under the house suspended
from the floor-beams, and ordered it to be used on the hospital as
well. Other boys brought the coffin, a grotesque patchwork of
packing-cases, and under his directions they laid Hughie Drummond
in it. Half a dozen boys carried it down the beach, while he rode
on the back of another, his arms around the black's neck, one hand
clutching a prayer-book.
While he read the service, the blacks gazed apprehensively at the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from House of Mirth by Edith Wharton: would--if things were different--and it lies with you to make
them so. It's just a word to say, and you put me out of my
misery!"
Their eyes met, and for a second she trembled again with the
nearness of the temptation. "You're mistaken; I know nothing; I
saw nothing," she exclaimed, striving, by sheer force of
reiteration, to build a barrier between herself and her peril;
and as he turned away, groaning out "You sacrifice us both," she
continued to repeat, as if it were a charm: "I know
nothing--absolutely nothing."
Lily had seen little of Rosedale since her illuminating talk with
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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 The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli: holds his state based on these arms, he will stand neither firm nor
safe; for they are disunited, ambitious, and without discipline,
unfaithful, valiant before friends, cowardly before enemies; they have
neither the fear of God nor fidelity to men, and destruction is
deferred only so long as the attack is; for in peace one is robbed by
them, and in war by the enemy. The fact is, they have no other
attraction or reason for keeping the field than a trifle of stipend,
which is not sufficient to make them willing to die for you. They are
ready enough to be your soldiers whilst you do not make war, but if
war comes they take themselves off or run from the foe; which I should
have little trouble to prove, for the ruin of Italy has been caused by
The Prince |
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 Augsburg Confession by Philip Melanchthon: there ought to be among Christians, in order to merit
justification a service like the Levitical, the arrangement of
which God had committed to the Apostles and bishops. For thus
some of them write; and the Pontiffs in some measure seem to
be misled by the example of the law of Moses. Hence are such
burdens, as that they make it mortal sin, even without offense
to others, to do manual labor on holy-days, a mortal sin to
omit the Canonical Hours, that certain foods defile the
conscience that fastings are works which appease God that sin
in a reserved case cannot be forgiven but by the authority of
him who reserved it; whereas the Canons themselves speak only
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