| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) by Dante Alighieri: Not merely to exceed our human, but,
That save its Maker, none can to the full
Enjoy it. At this point o'erpower'd I fail,
Unequal to my theme, as never bard
Of buskin or of sock hath fail'd before.
For, as the sun doth to the feeblest sight,
E'en so remembrance of that witching smile
Hath dispossess my spirit of itself.
Not from that day, when on this earth I first
Beheld her charms, up to that view of them,
Have I with song applausive ever ceas'd
The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Mountains by Stewart Edward White: out that we possessed no such garments. After a long
consultation with the proprietor she told us it was all
right for this time, but that we must not do it again.
At another place I had to identify myself as a
responsible person by showing a picture in a magazine
bought for the purpose.
The public never will know how to take you.
Most of it treats you as though you were a two-dollar
a day laborer; some of the more astute are puzzled.
One February I walked out of the North Country on
snowshoes and stepped directly into a Canadian
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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 Jungle by Upton Sinclair: Ostrinski.
The little tailor sat tilted back in his stiff kitchen chair,
with his feet stretched out upon the empty stove, and speaking in
low whispers, so as not to waken those in the next room. To
Jurgis he seemed a scarcely less wonderful person than the
speaker at the meeting; he was poor, the lowest of the low,
hunger-driven and miserable--and yet how much he knew, how much
he had dared and achieved, what a hero he had been! There were
others like him, too--thousands like him, and all of them
workingmen! That all this wonderful machinery of progress had
been created by his fellows--Jurgis could not believe it, it
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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 Selected Writings of Guy De Maupassant by Guy De Maupassant: friend, who, holding him at the length of his herculean arms,
exclaimed to him:
"You will tell your school-fellows that your papa is Philip Remy,
the blacksmith, and that he will pull the ears of all who do you
any harm."
On the morrow, when the school was full and lessons were about to
begin, little Simon stood up quite pale with trembling lips:
"My papa," said he in a clear voice, "is Philip Remy, the
blacksmith, and he has promised to box the ears of all who do me
any harm."
This time no one laughed any longer, for he was very well known,
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