| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Toiled with beak and claws together,
Made the rifts and openings wider
In the mighty ribs of Nahma,
And from peril and from prison,
From the body of the sturgeon,
From the peril of the water,
They released my Hiawatha.
He was standing near his wigwam,
On the margin of the water,
And he called to old Nokomis,
Called and beckoned to Nokomis,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen: of delight exclusively addressed to her sister. To atone
for this conduct therefore, Elinor took immediate possession
of the post of civility which she had assigned herself,
behaved with the greatest attention to Mrs. Jennings,
talked with her, laughed with her, and listened to her
whenever she could; and Mrs. Jennings on her side
treated them both with all possible kindness, was solicitous
on every occasion for their ease and enjoyment, and only
disturbed that she could not make them choose their own
dinners at the inn, nor extort a confession of their
preferring salmon to cod, or boiled fowls to veal cutlets.
Sense and Sensibility |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: that he has been the victim of his own fancies; he has neither more nor
less evidence of the supernatural than he had before. He himself has
become unsettled, but the laws of the world remain fixed as at the
beginning. He has discovered that his appeal to the fallibility of sense
was really an illusion. For whatever uncertainty there may be in the
appearances of nature, arises only out of the imperfection or variation of
the human senses, or possibly from the deficiency of certain branches of
knowledge; when science is able to apply her tests, the uncertainty is at
an end. We are apt sometimes to think that moral and metaphysical
philosophy are lowered by the influence which is exercised over them by
physical science. But any interpretation of nature by physical science is
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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 An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson: upon the scene. I would not very readily trust the travelling
merchant with any extravagant sum of money; but I am sure his heart
was in the right place. In this mixed world, if you can find one
or two sensible places in a man - above all, if you should find a
whole family living together on such pleasant terms - you may
surely be satisfied, and take the rest for granted; or, what is a
great deal better, boldly make up your mind that you can do
perfectly well without the rest; and that ten thousand bad traits
cannot make a single good one any the less good.
It was getting late. M. Hector lit a stable lantern and went off
to his cart for some arrangements; and my young gentleman proceeded
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