| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Second Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces;
but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both
could not be answered--that of neither has been answered fully.
The Almighty has his own purposes. "Woe unto the world because
of offenses! for it must needs be that offenses come; but woe
to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose
that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the
providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued
through his appointed time, he now wills to remove, and that he
gives to both North and South this terrible war, as the woe due
to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any
Second Inaugural Address |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Chance by Joseph Conrad: inspiration to make Flora comfortable. "Mrs. Brown! Mrs. Brown!"
At last she appeared from somewhere. "Mrs. Anthony has come on
board. Just gone into the cabin. Hadn't you better see if you can
be of any assistance?"
"Yes, sir."
And again he was alone with the situation he had created in the
hardihood and inexperience of his heart. He thought he had better
go on deck. In fact he ought to have been there before. At any
rate it would be the usual thing for him to be on deck. But a sound
of muttering and of faint thuds somewhere near by arrested his
attention. They proceeded from Mr. Smith's room, he perceived. It
Chance |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Works of Samuel Johnson by Samuel Johnson: the chambermaid, he inquired out mortgages and
securities, and wrote bonds and contracts; and had
endeared himself to the old woman, who once rashly
lent an hundred pounds without consulting him, by
informing her, that her debtor, was on the point
of bankruptcy, and posting so expeditiously with
an execution, that all the other creditors were
defrauded.
To the squire he was a kind of steward, and had
distinguished himself in his office by his address in
raising the rents, his inflexibility in distressing the
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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 Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: work of some supernatural brush. The picture represented Adonis
stretched out on a lion's skin. The lamp, in an alabaster vase,
hanging in the centre of the boudoir, cast upon the canvas a soft
light which enabled us to grasp all the beauties of the picture.
"Does such a perfect creature exist?" she asked me, after examining
attentively, and not without a sweet smile of satisfaction, the
exquisite grace of the outlines, the attitude, the color, the hair, in
fact everything.
"He is too beautiful for a man," she added, after such a scrutiny as
she would have bestowed upon a rival.
Ah! how sharply I felt at that moment those pangs of jealousy in which
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