| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Paradise Lost by John Milton: The universal Maker we may praise;
Who justly hath driven out his rebel foes
To deepest Hell, and, to repair that loss,
Created this new happy race of Men
To serve him better: Wise are all his ways.
So spake the false dissembler unperceived;
For neither Man nor Angel can discern
Hypocrisy, the only evil that walks
Invisible, except to God alone,
By his permissive will, through Heaven and Earth:
And oft, though wisdom wake, suspicion sleeps
Paradise Lost |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Concerning Christian Liberty by Martin Luther: her are glorifying Christ; in short, those are Christians who are
not Romans.
But, to say yet more, even this never entered my heart: to
inveigh against the Court of Rome or to dispute at all about her.
For, seeing all remedies for her health to be desperate, I looked
on her with contempt, and, giving her a bill of divorcement, said
to her, "He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he that
is filthy, let him be filthy still," giving myself up to the
peaceful and quiet study of sacred literature, that by this I
might be of use to the brethren living about me.
While I was making some advance in these studies, Satan opened
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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 Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane: us quite a send-off. But this is what I can't
stand--these everlastin' ol' soldiers, titterin' an'
laughin', an' then that general, he's crazy."
The youth exclaimed with sudden exaspera-
tion: "He's a lunkhead! He makes me mad.
I wish he'd come along next time. We'd show
'im what--"
He ceased because several men had come
hurrying up. Their faces expressed a bringing
of great news.
"O Flem, yeh jest oughta heard!" cried one,
The Red Badge of Courage |
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 Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac: As he grew older, Cornelius, constantly robbed, and always fearful of
being duped by men, came to hate mankind, with the one exception of
the king, whom he greatly respected. He fell into extreme misanthropy,
but, like most misers, his passion for gold, the assimilation, as it
were, of that metal with his own substance, became closer and closer,
and age intensified it. His sister herself excited his suspicions,
though she was perhaps more miserly, more rapacious than her brother
whom she actually surpassed in penurious inventions. Their daily
existence had something mysterious and problematical about it. The old
woman rarely took bread from the baker; she appeared so seldom in the
market, that the least credulous of the townspeople ended by
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