| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Plutarch's Lives by A. H. Clough: with the Achaeans, the reserve. Their orders were to keep their
ground, and not engage till from the other wing, where the king
fought in person, they should see a red coat lifted up on the point
of a spear. The Achaeans obeyed their order, and stood fast; but the
Illyrians were led on by their commanders to the attack. Euclidas,
the brother of Cleomenes, seeing the foot thus severed from the
horse, detached the best of his light-armed men, commanding them to
wheel about, and charge the unprotected Illyrians in the rear. This
charge putting things in confusion, Philopoemen, considering those
light-armed men would be easily repelled, went first to the king's
officers to make them sensible what the occasion required. But they
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Pivot of Civilization by Margaret Sanger: trouble, at ages ranging from three weeks to four months. The only
cause of these deaths the mother could give was that ``food did not
agree with them.'' She confessed quite frankly that she believed in
feeding babies, and gave them everything anybody told her to give
them. She began to give them at the age of one month, bread,
potatoes, egg, crackers, etc. For the last baby that died, this mother
had bought a goat and gave its milk to the baby; the goat got sick,
but the mother continued to give her baby its milk until the goat went
dry. Moreover, she directed the feeding of her daughter's baby until
it died at the age of three months. ``On account of the many children
she had had, the neighbors consider her an authority on baby care.''
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy: as to get into good employment he would put up with the inevitable.
So he thanked God for his health and strength, and took courage.
For the present he was outside the gates of everything, colleges included:
perhaps some day he would be inside. Those palaces of light and leading;
he might some day look down on the world through their panes.
At length he did receive a message from the stone-mason's yard--
that a job was waiting for him. It was his first encouragement,
and he closed with the offer promptly.
He was young and strong, or he never could have executed with such zest
the undertakings to which he now applied himself, since they involved
reading most of the night after working all the day. First he bought
Jude the Obscure |
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 Macbeth by William Shakespeare: Our Honors in these flattering streames,
And make our Faces Vizards to our Hearts,
Disguising what they are
Lady. You must leaue this
Macb. O, full of Scorpions is my Minde, deare Wife:
Thou know'st, that Banquo and his Fleans liues
Lady. But in them, Natures Coppie's not eterne
Macb. There's comfort yet, they are assaileable,
Then be thou iocund: ere the Bat hath flowne
His Cloyster'd flight, ere to black Heccats summons
The shard-borne Beetle, with his drowsie hums,
Macbeth |
