| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau: with knowing you are cheated, or with saying that you are
cheated, or even with petitioning him to pay you your due;
but you take effectual steps at once to obtain the full
amount, and see to it that you are never cheated again.
Action from principle, the perception and the performance of
right, changes things and relations; it is essentially
revolutionary, and does not consist wholly with anything
which was. It not only divided States and churches, it
divides families; ay, it divides the individual, separating
the diabolical in him from the divine.
Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie: shock--especially to John, though of course after the verdict, he
had realized that it was only a matter of time. Still, the
presence of the detectives brought the truth home to him more
than anything else could have done.
Poirot had conferred with Japp in a low tone on the way up, and
it was the latter functionary who requested that the household,
with the exception of the servants, should be assembled together
in the drawing-room. I realized the significance of this. It
was up to Poirot to make his boast good.
Personally, I was not sanguine. Poirot might have excellent
reasons for his belief in Inglethorp's innocence, but a man of
The Mysterious Affair at Styles |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac: cottage which we are going to visit has never got over the death of
one of his children. The eldest boy, he was only a lad, would try to
do a man's work last harvest-tide; it was beyond his strength, and
before the autumn was out he died of a decline. This is the first case
of really strong fatherly love that has come under my notice. As a
rule, when their children die, the peasant's regret is for the loss of
a useful chattel, and a part of their stock-in-trade, and the older
the child, the heavier their sense of loss. A grown-up son or daughter
is so much capital to the parents. But this poor fellow really loved
that boy of his. 'Nothing cam comfort me for my loss,' he said one day
when I came across him out in the fields. He had forgotten all about
|
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 Verses 1889-1896 by Rudyard Kipling:
The Driver 'e give nothin' 'cept a little coughin' grunt,
But 'e swung 'is 'orses 'andsome when it came to "Action Front!"
An' if one wheel was juicy, you may lay your Monday head
'Twas juicier for the niggers when the case begun to spread.
The moril of this story, it is plainly to be seen:
You 'avn't got no families when servin' of the Queen --
You 'avn't got no brothers, fathers, sisters, wives, or sons --
If you want to win your battles take an' work your bloomin' guns!
Down in the Infantry, nobody cares;
Verses 1889-1896 |
