| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: monopolists in old days, get their money in a way that gains them
the contempt of every one. They don't care for their contempt,
and then they use their dishonest gains to buy off the contempt
they have deserved."
"Perfectly true!" chimed in Vassenka Veslovsky. "Perfectly!
Oblonsky, of course, goes out of bonhomie, but other people say:
'Well, Oblonsky stays with them.' . . ."
"Not a bit of it." Levin could hear that Oblonsky was smiling as
he spoke. "I simply don't consider him more dishonest than any
other wealthy merchant or nobleman. They've all made their money
alike--by their work and their intelligence."
Anna Karenina |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Shakespeare's Sonnets by William Shakespeare: Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind,
Still constant in a wondrous excellence;
Therefore my verse to constancy confin'd,
One thing expressing, leaves out difference.
'Fair, kind, and true,' is all my argument,
'Fair, kind, and true,' varying to other words;
And in this change is my invention spent,
Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords.
Fair, kind, and true, have often liv'd alone,
Which three till now, never kept seat in one.
CVI
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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 The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain: Ananias Twain, alias Baron Munchausen; John George Twain,
alias Captain Kydd; and then there are George Francis Twain,
Tom Pepper, Nebuchadnezzar, and Baalam's Ass--they all belong
to our family, but to a branch of it somewhat distinctly removed
from the honorable direct line--in fact, a collateral branch,
whose members chiefly differ from the ancient stock in that, in order
to acquire the notoriety we have always yearned and hungered for,
they have got into a low way of going to jail instead of getting hanged.
It is not well, when writing an autobiography, to follow your ancestry
down too close to your own time--it is safest to speak only vaguely
of your great-grandfather, and then skip from there to yourself,
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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 Profits of Religion by Upton Sinclair: O'Connell and Gibbons are at heart patriotic Americans and
members of an American hierachy, yet they are as cardinals
foreign princes of the blood, to whom the United States, as one
of the great powers of the world, is under an obligation to
concede the same honors that they receive abroad.
Thus, were Cardinal Farley to visit an American man-of-war, he
would be entitled to the salutes and to naval honors reserved for
a foreign royal personage, and at any official entertainment at
Washington the Cardinal will outrank not merely every cabinet
officer, the speaker of the house and the vice-president, but
also the foreign ambassadors, coming immediately next to the
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