| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from First Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: and prevent renewed secession?
Plainly, the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy.
A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations,
and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular
opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people.
Whoever rejects it does, of necessity, fly to anarchy or to despotism.
Unanimity is impossible; the rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement,
is wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle,
anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is left.
I do not forget the position, assumed by some, that Constitutional
questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court; nor do I deny
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle: room. His features were gravely set, but there was a light in his
eye which made me think that he had not been disappointed in his
conclusions.
"They have laid the supper, then," he said, rubbing his hands.
"You seem to expect company. They have laid for five."
"Yes, I fancy we may have some company dropping in," said he. "I
am surprised that Lord St. Simon has not already arrived. Ha! I
fancy that I hear his step now upon the stairs."
It was indeed our visitor of the afternoon who came bustling in,
dangling his glasses more vigorously than ever, and with a very
perturbed expression upon his aristocratic features.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Duchess of Padua by Oscar Wilde: Would fall from heaven, and the palsied moon
Be in her sphere eclipsed, and the great sun
Refuse to shine upon the unjust earth
Which saw thee die.
GUIDO
Be sure I shall not stir.
DUCHESS
[wringing her hands]
Is one sin not enough, but must it breed
A second sin more horrible again
Than was the one that bare it? O God, God,
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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 Recruit by Honore de Balzac: still lives. God would not so deceive us."
"Ah! if he would only come--no matter for his danger here."
"Poor Monsieur Auguste!" cried Brigitte, "he must be toiling along the
roads on foot."
"There's eight o'clock striking now," cried the countess, in terror.
She dared not stay away any longer from her guests; but before
re-entering the salon, she paused a moment under the peristyle of the
staircase, listening if any sound were breaking the silence of the
street. She smiled at Brigitte's husband, who was standing sentinel at
the door, and whose eyes seemed stupefied by the intensity of his
attention to the murmurs of the street and night.
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