| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Reason Discourse by Rene Descartes: affairs in which he is personally interested, and the issue of which must
presently punish him if he has judged amiss, than in those conducted by a
man of letters in his study, regarding speculative matters that are of no
practical moment, and followed by no consequences to himself, farther,
perhaps, than that they foster his vanity the better the more remote they
are from common sense; requiring, as they must in this case, the exercise
of greater ingenuity and art to render them probable. In addition, I had
always a most earnest desire to know how to distinguish the true from the
false, in order that I might be able clearly to discriminate the right
path in life, and proceed in it with confidence.
It is true that, while busied only in considering the manners of other
Reason Discourse |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Soul of a Bishop by H. G. Wells: It was no longer a riddle that little immediate things should
seem of more importance than great and final things. For man is a
creature thrusting his way up from the beast to divinity, from
the blindness of individuality to the knowledge of a common end.
We stand deep in the engagements of our individual lives looking
up to God, and only realizing in our moments of exaltation that
through God we can escape from and rule and alter the whole
world-wide scheme of individual lives. Only in phases of
illumination do we realize the creative powers that lie ready to
man's hand. Personal affections, immediate obligations,
ambitions, self-seeking, these are among the natural and
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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 Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane: "Nell, I allus trea's yeh shquare, din' I? Yeh likes me, don' yehs, Nell?
I'm goo' f'ler?"
"Sure," said the woman of brilliance and audacity.
"Yeh knows I'm stuck on yehs, don' yehs, Nell?"
"Sure," she repeated, carelessly.
Overwhelmed by a spasm of drunken adoration, he drew two or
three bills from his pocket, and, with the trembling fingers of an
offering priest, laid them on the table before the woman.
"Yehs knows, damn it, yehs kin have all got, 'cause I'm stuck on yehs,
Nell, damn't, I--I'm stuck on yehs, Nell--buy drinksh--damn't--we're havin'
heluva time--w'en anyone trea's me ri'--I--damn't, Nell--we're havin'
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets |
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 Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte: fetch me from Thornfield.
"I am very ill, I know," she said ere long. "I was trying to turn
myself a few minutes since, and find I cannot move a limb. It is as
well I should ease my mind before I die: what we think little of in
health, burdens us at such an hour as the present is to me. Is the
nurse here? or is there no one in the room but you?"
I assured her we were alone.
"Well, I have twice done you a wrong which I regret now. One was in
breaking the promise which I gave my husband to bring you up as my
own child; the other--" she stopped. "After all, it is of no great
importance, perhaps," she murmured to herself: "and then I may get
Jane Eyre |
