| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Paradise Lost by John Milton: To interrupt the sweet of life, from which
God hath bid dwell far off all anxious cares,
And not molest us; unless we ourselves
Seek them with wandering thoughts, and notions vain.
But apt the mind or fancy is to rove
Unchecked, and of her roving is no end;
Till warned, or by experience taught, she learn,
That, not to know at large of things remote
From use, obscure and subtle; but, to know
That which before us lies in daily life,
Is the prime wisdom: What is more, is fume,
Paradise Lost |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Economist by Xenophon: piece of land,[12] than on a horse, for instance, or on his fellow-
man. For there is nought which earth displays with intent to deceive,
but in clear and simple language stamped with the seal of truth she
informs us what she can and cannot do.[13] Thus it has ever seemed to
me that earth is the best discoverer of true honesty,[14] in that she
offers all her stores of knowledge in a shape accessible to the
learner, so that he who runs may read. Here it is not open to the
sluggard, as in other arts, to put forward the plea of ignorance or
lack of knowledge, for all men know that earth, if kindly treated,
will repay in kind. No! there is no witness[15] against a coward soul
so clear as that of husbandry;[16] since no man ever yet persuaded
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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 Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: on the care of your lawyer and stockbroker, of the guards and
signalmen who convey you rapidly from place to place, and the
policemen who walk the streets for your protection; but is
there not a thought of gratitude in your heart for certain
other benefactors who set you smiling when they fall in your
way, or season your dinner with good company? Colonel Newcome
helped to lose his friend's money; Fred Bayham had an ugly
trick of borrowing shirts; and yet they were better people to
fall among than Mr. Barnes. And though Falstaff was neither
sober nor very honest, I think I could name one or two long-
faced Barabbases whom the world could better have done
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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 The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known.
Chapter 4
On Sunday morning while church bells rang in the villages alongshore,
the world and its mistress returned to Gatsby's house and twinkled
hilariously on his lawn.
"He's a bootlegger," said the young ladies, moving somewhere between
his cocktails and his flowers. "One time he killed a man who had found out
that he was nephew to Von Hindenburg and second cousin to the devil.
Reach me a rose, honey, and pour me a last drop into that there crystal
glass."
Once I wrote down on the empty spaces of a time-table the names
The Great Gatsby |
