| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Bronte Sisters: the bell and order the favoured beverage.
'I thought,' continued he, 'I'd just look in upon you as I passed,
and taste your home-brewed ale. I've been to call on Mrs. Graham.'
'Have you, indeed?'
He nodded gravely, and added with awful emphasis - 'I thought it
incumbent upon me to do so.'
'Really!' ejaculated my mother.
'Why so, Mr. Millward?' asked I.
He looked at me with some severity, and turning again to my mother,
repeated, - 'I thought it incumbent upon me!' and struck his stick
on the floor again. My mother sat opposite, an awe-struck but
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Koran: that will be forgiving and merciful.
On the day every soul will come to wrangle for itself, and every
soul shall be paid what it has earned, and they shall not be wronged.
God has struck out a parable: a city which was safe and quiet, its
provision came to it in plenty from every place, and then it denied
God's favours, and God made it feel clothing of hunger and fear, for
that which they had wrought.
And there came to them an apostle from amongst themselves, but
they called him a liar, and the torment seized them, while yet they
were unjust.
Eat, then, from what God has provided you with, things lawful and
The Koran |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Mucker by Edgar Rice Burroughs: bank as the offer was made.
"Which way did he go?" asked the captain. "Did no one
see him leave?"
Bridge was upon the point of saying that he had seen him
and that he had ridden north, when it occurred to him that a
thousand dollars--even a thousand dollars Mex--was a great
deal of money, and that it would carry both himself and Billy
to Rio and leave something for pleasure beside.
Then up spoke a tall, thin man with the skin of a coffee
bean.
"I saw him, Senor Capitan," he cried. "He kept his horse in
The Mucker |
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 Madam How and Lady Why by Charles Kingsley: And certainly, if you had ever seen a lava stream even when cool,
and looked down, as I have done, at the great river of rough black
blocks streaming away far and wide over the land, you would think
it the most hideous and the most useless thing you ever saw. And
yet, my dear child, there is One who told men to judge not
according to the appearance, but to judge righteous judgment. He
said that about matters spiritual and human: but it is quite as
true about matters natural, which also are His work, and all obey
His will.
Now if you had seen, as I have seen, close round the edges of
these lava streams, and sometimes actually upon them, or upon the
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