The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Timaeus by Plato: flexion and extension, while the flesh would serve as a protection against
the summer heat and against the winter cold, and also against falls, softly
and easily yielding to external bodies, like articles made of felt; and
containing in itself a warm moisture which in summer exudes and makes the
surface damp, would impart a natural coolness to the whole body; and again
in winter by the help of this internal warmth would form a very tolerable
defence against the frost which surrounds it and attacks it from without.
He who modelled us, considering these things, mixed earth with fire and
water and blended them; and making a ferment of acid and salt, he mingled
it with them and formed soft and succulent flesh. As for the sinews, he
made them of a mixture of bone and unfermented flesh, attempered so as to
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Night and Day by Virginia Woolf: whole, to a book.
No sooner had he heard the young people come in and go upstairs than
he sent a maid to tell Miss Katharine that he wished to speak to her
in the study. She was slipping furs loosely onto the floor in the
drawing-room in front of the fire. They were all gathered round,
reluctant to part. The message from her father surprised Katharine,
and the others caught from her look, as she turned to go, a vague
sense of apprehension.
Mr. Hilbery was reassured by the sight of her. He congratulated
himself, he prided himself, upon possessing a daughter who had a sense
of responsibility and an understanding of life profound beyond her
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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 Dynamiter by Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Van De Grift Stevenson: passed my days, indeed, in laboratories; but in all my vigils
I have not forgotten the tune of a young pulse. Age asks
with timidity to be spared intolerable pain; youth, taking
fortune by the beard, demands joy like a right. These things
I have not forgotten; none, rather, has more keenly felt,
none more jealously considered them; I have but postponed
them to their day. See, then: you stand without support;
the only friend left to you, this old investigator, old in
cunning, young in sympathy. Answer me but one question: Are
you free from the entanglement of what the world calls love?
Do you still command your heart and purposes? or are you
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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 Confessio Amantis by John Gower: Fro ferst that men the swerdes grounde,
That ther nis on upon this grounde,
A vice forein fro the lawe,
Wherof that many a good felawe
Hath be distraght be sodein chance;
And yit to kinde no plesance
It doth, bot wher he most achieveth
His pourpos, most to kinde he grieveth, 10
As he which out of conscience
Is enemy to pacience:
And is be name on of the Sevene,
Confessio Amantis |