| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain: He did not finish, for he saw her eye soften; his supplication
had touched her. She said, with gentle persuasiveness:
"We must not spend the capital, dear, it would not be wise.
Out of the income from it--"
"That will answer, that will answer, Aleck! How dear and good you are!
There will be a noble income and if we can spend that--"
"Not ALL of it, dear, not all of it, but you can spend a part of it.
That is, a reasonable part. But the whole of the capital--
every penny of it--must be put right to work, and kept at it.
You see the reasonableness of that, don't you?"
"Why, ye-s. Yes, of course. But we'll have to wait so long.
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Enoch Arden, &c. by Alfred Tennyson: Have twisted back upon themselves, and mean
Vileness, we are grown so proud--I wish'd my voice
A rushing tempest of the wrath of God
To blow these sacrifices thro' the world--
Sent like the twelve-divided concubine
To inflame the tribes: but there--out yonder--earth
Lightens from her own central Hell--O there
The red fruit of an old idolatry--
The heads of chiefs and princes fall so fast,
They cling together in the ghastly sack--
The land all shambles--naked marriages
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne: here, Ayrton, whose influence has once more manifested itself, who does for
us all that which we cannot do for ourselves, and who, his will
accomplished, conceals himself from us."
"Let us make search for him, then!" exclaimed Pencroft.
"Yes, we will search for him," answered Harding, "but we shall not
discover this powerful being who performs such wonders, until he pleases to
call us to him!"
This invisible protection, which rendered their own action unavailing,
both irritated and piqued the engineer. The relative inferiority which it
proved was of a nature to wound a haughty spirit. A generosity evinced in
such a manner as to elude all tokens of gratitude, implied a sort of
The Mysterious Island |
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 The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin: the Free and Easy: free, as being, by the general practice and habit
of the virtues, free from the dominion of vice; and particularly
by the practice of industry and frugality, free from debt, which
exposes a man to confinement, and a species of slavery to his creditors.
This is as much as I can now recollect of the project,
except that I communicated it in part to two young men, who adopted
it with some enthusiasm; but my then narrow circumstances,
and the necessity I was under of sticking close to my business,
occasion'd my postponing the further prosecution of it at that time;
and my multifarious occupations, public and private, induc'd me
to continue postponing, so that it has been omitted till I have no
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin |
