| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: That was a good bit of work on the whole--his eight children. They
showed he did not damn the poor little universe entirely, for on an
evening like this, he thought, looking at the land dwindling away, the
little island seemed pathetically small, half swallowed up in the sea.
"Poor little place," he murmured with a sigh.
She heard him. He said the most melancholy things, but she noticed
that directly he had said them he always seemed more cheerful than
usual. All this phrase-making was a game, she thought, for if she had
said half what he said, she would have blown her brains out by now.
It annoyed her, this phrase-making, and she said to him, in a matter-
of-fact way, that it was a perfectly lovely evening. And what was he
To the Lighthouse |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Buttered Side Down by Edna Ferber: help matters none. As I said, I'm rotten at figures. But you're
the first investment that ever turned out bad, and let me tell you
I've handled some mighty bad smelling ones. Why, kid, if you had
just come to me on the quiet and asked for the loan of a hundred or
so why----"
"What's the joke, Jo?" said Ted again, slowly.
"This ain't my notion of a joke," came the terse answer.
"We're three hundred short."
The last vestige of Ted Terrill's old-time radiance seemed to
flicker and die, leaving him ashen and old.
"Short?" he repeated. Then, "My God!" in a strangely
Buttered Side Down |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli: therefore, came before the duke and saluted him respectfully, and were
received by him with goodwill; they were at once placed between those
who were commissioned to look after them.
But the duke noticing that Oliverotto, who had remained with his band
in Sinigalia, was missing--for Oliverotto was waiting in the square
before his quarters near the river, keeping his men in order and
drilling them--signalled with his eye to Don Michelle, to whom the
care of Oliverotto had been committed, that he should take measures
that Oliverotto should not escape. Therefore Don Michele rode off and
joined Oliverotto, telling him that it was not right to keep his men
out of their quarters, because these might be taken up by the men of
The Prince |
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 Democracy In America, Volume 1 by Alexis de Toqueville: which the science of politics has not descended to the humblest
classes of society. I have never been more struck by the good
sense and the practical judgment of the Americans than in the
ingenious devices by which they elude the numberless difficulties
resulting from their Federal Constitution. I scarcely ever met
with a plain American citizen who could not distinguish, with
surprising facility, the obligations created by the laws of
Congress from those created by the laws of his own State; and
who, after having discriminated between the matters which come
under the cognizance of the Union and those which the local
legislature is competent to regulate, could not point out the
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