| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw: THE BEEFEATER. _[overwhelmed]_ Gold! Oh, sir, you are a better
paymaster than your dark lady.
THE MAN. Women are thrifty, my friend.
THE BEEFEATER. Tis so, sir. And you have to consider that the most
open handed of us must een cheapen that which we buy every day. This
lady has to make a present to a warder nigh every night of her life.
THE MAN. _[turning pale]_ I'll not believe it.
THE BEEFEATER. Now you, sir, I dare be sworn, do not have an
adventure like this twice in the year.
THE MAN. Villain: wouldst tell me that my dark lady hath ever done
thus before? that she maketh occasions to meet other men?
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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 Contrast by Royall Tyler: knows to be the most mortifying, to marry a weak
man, and blush at my husband's folly in every com-
pany I visited. But to marry a depraved wretch,
whose only virtue is a polished exterior; who is
actuated by the unmanly ambition of conquering the
defenceless; whose heart, insensible to the emotions
of patriotism, dilates at the plaudits of every unthink-
ing girl; whose laurels are the sighs and tears of the
miserable victims of his specious behaviour,--can he,
who has no regard for the peace and happiness of
other families, ever have a due regard for the peace
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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 Vailima Letters by Robert Louis Stevenson: that time he showed no symptom of dementia whatever. The
medicine (says Lafaele) is principally used for the wholesale
slaughter of families; he himself feared last night that his
dose was fatal; only one other person, on this island, knows
the secret; and she, Lafaele darkly whispers, has abused it.
This remarkable tree we must try to identify.
The man-of-war doctor came up to-day, gave us a strait-
waistcoat, taught us to bandage, examined the boy and saw he
was apparently well - he insisted on doing his work all
morning, poor lad, and when he first came down kissed all the
family at breakfast! The Doctor was greatly excited, as may
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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 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne: joined by T-shaped irons, which render it very strong. Indeed, owing to
this cellular arrangement it resists like a block, as if it were solid.
Its sides cannot yield; it coheres spontaneously, and not by the closeness
of its rivets; and its perfect union of the materials enables it to defy
the roughest seas.
"These two hulls are composed of steel plates, whose density is
from .7 to .8 that of water. The first is not less than two inches
and a half thick and weighs 394 tons. The second envelope, the keel,
twenty inches high and ten thick, weighs only sixty-two tons.
The engine, the ballast, the several accessories and apparatus
appendages, the partitions and bulkheads, weigh 961.62 tons.
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea |
