| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Emma McChesney & Co. by Edna Ferber: They were loyal to T. A. Buck, because he was his father's son.
For three weeks the front office had been bewildered. From
bewilderment it passed to worry. A worried, bewildered front
office is not an efficient front office. Ever since Mrs.
McChesney had come off the road, at the death of old T. A. Buck,
to assume the secretaryship of the company which she had served
faithfully for ten years, she had set an example for the entire
establishment. She was the pacemaker. Every day of her life she
figuratively pressed the electric button that set the wheels to
whirring. At nine A.M., sharp, she appeared, erect, brisk,
alert, vibrating energy. Usually, the office staff had not yet
Emma McChesney & Co. |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Talisman by Walter Scott: church, among Crusaders, implies war with the Saracens, with whom
the princes have made truce; and the one ends with the other.
And besides, see you not how every prince of them is seeking his
own several ends? I will seek mine also--and that is honour.
For honour I came hither; and if I may not win it upon the
Saracens, at least I will not lose a jot from any respect to this
paltry Duke, though he were bulwarked and buttressed by every
prince in the Crusade."
De Vaux turned to obey the King's mandate, shrugging his
shoulders at the same time, the bluntness of his nature being
unable to conceal that its tenor went against his judgment. But
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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 Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin: who accordingly abandoned his cause, and occasion'd our more speedy
discomfiture in the synod. I stuck by him, however, as I rather
approv'd his giving us good sermons compos'd by others, than bad
ones of his own manufacture, tho' the latter was the practice
of our common teachers. He afterward acknowledg'd to me that none
of those he preach'd were his own; adding, that his memory was such
as enabled him to retain and repeat any sermon after one reading only.
On our defeat, he left us in search elsewhere of better fortune,
and I quitted the congregation, never joining it after, tho' I continu'd
many years my subscription for the support of its ministers.
I had begun in 1733 to study languages; I soon made myself so much
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin |
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 Letters of Two Brides by Honore de Balzac: Sacrifice! I said to myself, how far does it excel passion! What
pleasure has roots so deep as one which is not personal but creative?
Is not the spirit of Sacrifice a power mightier than any of its
results? Is it not that mysterious, tireless divinity, who hides
beneath innumerable spheres in an unexplored centre, through which all
worlds in turn must pass? Sacrifice, solitary and secret, rich in
pleasures only tasted in silence, which none can guess at, and no
profane eye has ever seen; Sacrifice, jealous God and tyrant, God of
strength and victory, exhaustless spring which, partaking of the very
essence of all that exists, can by no expenditure be drained below its
own level;--Sacrifice, there is the keynote of my life.
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