| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Grimm's Fairy Tales by Brothers Grimm: against my will, for I always loved you very much. Your wishing-cloak
hangs up in the closet, and as for the bird's heart, I will give it
you too.' But he said, 'Keep it, it will be just the same thing, for I
mean to make you my wife.' So they were married, and lived together
very happily till they died.
THE STORY OF THE YOUTH WHO WENT FORTH TO LEARN WHAT FEAR WAS
A certain father had two sons, the elder of who was smart and
sensible, and could do everything, but the younger was stupid and
could neither learn nor understand anything, and when people saw him
they said: 'There's a fellow who will give his father some trouble!'
When anything had to be done, it was always the elder who was forced
Grimm's Fairy Tales |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: not escape. I was amazed to see such actions and behaviour in
brute beasts; and concluded with myself, that if the inhabitants
of this country were endued with a proportionable degree of
reason, they must needs be the wisest people upon earth. This
thought gave me so much comfort, that I resolved to go forward,
until I could discover some house or village, or meet with any of
the natives, leaving the two horses to discourse together as they
pleased. But the first, who was a dapple gray, observing me to
steal off, neighed after me in so expressive a tone, that I
fancied myself to understand what he meant; whereupon I turned
back, and came near to him to expect his farther commands: but
Gulliver's Travels |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Pupil by Henry James: the second, if he would only see it, he was really too absurd to
expect to be paid. Wasn't he paid enough without perpetual money -
wasn't he paid by the comfortable luxurious home he enjoyed with
them all, without a care, an anxiety, a solitary want? Wasn't he
sure of his position, and wasn't that everything to a young man
like him, quite unknown, with singularly little to show, the ground
of whose exorbitant pretensions it had never been easy to discover?
Wasn't he paid above all by the sweet relation he had established
with Morgan - quite ideal as from master to pupil - and by the
simple privilege of knowing and living with so amazingly gifted a
child; than whom really (and she meant literally what she said)
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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 Crito by Plato: SOCRATES: But if this is true, what is the application? In leaving the
prison against the will of the Athenians, do I wrong any? or rather do I
not wrong those whom I ought least to wrong? Do I not desert the
principles which were acknowledged by us to be just--what do you say?
CRITO: I cannot tell, Socrates, for I do not know.
SOCRATES: Then consider the matter in this way:--Imagine that I am about
to play truant (you may call the proceeding by any name which you like),
and the laws and the government come and interrogate me: 'Tell us,
Socrates,' they say; 'what are you about? are you not going by an act of
yours to overturn us--the laws, and the whole state, as far as in you lies?
Do you imagine that a state can subsist and not be overthrown, in which the
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