| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from United States Declaration of Independence: and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves
invested with Power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection
and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns,
and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries
to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun
with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the
most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy of the Head of a civilized nation.
United States Declaration of Independence |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson: indeed! I had his hand to kiss in front of the army. O, well, these
were the good days, but it is all like a dream that I have seen and
then awakened. It went what way you very well know; and these were the
worst days of all, when the red-coat soldiers were out, and my father
and uncles lay in the hill, and I was to be carrying them their meat in
the middle night, or at the short sight of day when the cocks crow.
Yes, I have walked in the night, many's the time, and my heart great in
me for terror of the darkness. It is a strange thing I will never have
been meddled with by a bogle; but they say a maid goes safe. Next
there was my uncle's marriage, and that was a dreadful affair beyond
all. Jean Kay was that woman's name; and she had me in the room with
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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 Dunwich Horror by H. P. Lovecraft: animals. Odd wounds or sores, having something of the aspect of
incisions, seemed to afflict the visible cattle; and once or twice
during the earlier months certain callers fancied they could discern
similar sores about the throats of the grey, unshaven old man
and his slattemly, crinkly-haired albino daughter.
In the spring
after Wilbur's birth Lavinia resumed her customary rambles in
the hills, bearing in her misproportioned arms the swarthy child.
Public interest in the Whateleys subsided after most of the country
folk had seen the baby, and no one bothered to comment on the
swift development which that newcomer seemed every day to exhibit.
The Dunwich Horror |
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 Dust by Mr. And Mrs. Haldeman-Julius: never would, but life was too short to be overly fastidious. It
was flying, flying --in a few more years he would be fifty.
Fifty! And what had it all been about, anyway? He did have this
farm to show for his work--he had not made a bad job of that, he
and his Rag-weed. In her own fashion she was a good sort, and
better looking than most women past forty.
Rose felt the closeness of his scrutiny, sensed the unusual
cordiality of his mood, but from the depths of her hardly won
wisdom took no apparent notice of it. She knew well enough how
not to annoy him. If only she had not learned too late! What was
it about Martin, she wondered afresh, that had held her through
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