| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Master and Man by Leo Tolstoy: spending all his clothes on drink he became turbulent and
quarrelsome. Vasili Andreevich himself had turned him away
several times, but had afterwards taken him back again--valuing
his honesty, his kindness to animals, and especially his
cheapness. Vasili Andreevich did not pay Nikita the eighty
rubles a year such a man was worth, but only about forty, which
he gave him haphazard, in small sums, and even that mostly not
in cash but in goods from his own shop and at high prices.
Nikita's wife Martha, who had once been a handsome vigorous
woman, managed the homestead with the help of her son and two
daughters, and did not urge Nikita to live at home: first
Master and Man |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Caesar's Commentaries in Latin by Julius Caesar: Britanniae anteponendas iudicabat, magnum iis numerum obsidum imperat.
Quibus adductis eos in fidem recipit. Navibus circiter LXXX onerariis
coactis contractisque, quot satis esse ad duas transportandas legiones
existimabat, quod praeterea navium longarum habebat quaestori, legatis
praefectisque distribuit. Huc accedebant XVIII onerariae naves, quae ex
eo loco a milibus passuum VIII vento tenebantur quo minus in eundem portum
venire possent: has equitibus tribuit. Reliquum exercitum Q. Titurio
Sabino et L. Aurunculeio Cottae legatis in Menapios atque in eos pagos
Morinorum a quibus ad eum legati non venerant ducendum dedit.
P. Sulpicium Rufum legatum cum eo praesidio quod satis esse arbitrabatur
portum tenere iussit.
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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 Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: mortals till about thirty years old; after which, by degrees,
they grew melancholy and dejected, increasing in both till they
came to fourscore. This he learned from their own confession:
for otherwise, there not being above two or three of that species
born in an age, they were too few to form a general observation
by. When they came to fourscore years, which is reckoned the
extremity of living in this country, they had not only all the
follies and infirmities of other old men, but many more which
arose from the dreadful prospect of never dying. They were not
only opinionative, peevish, covetous, morose, vain, talkative,
but incapable of friendship, and dead to all natural affection,
Gulliver's Travels |
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 Cromwell by William Shakespeare: Thou art a man differing from vulgar form,
And by how much thy spirit is ranked bove these
In rules of Art, by so much it shines brighter
By travel whose observance pleads his merit,
In a most learned, yet unaffecting spirit,
Good Cromwell, cast an eye of fair regard
Bout all my house, and what this ruder flesh,
Through ignorance, or wine, do miscreate,
Salve thou with courtesy: if welcome want,
Full bowls and ample banquets will seem scant.
CROMWELL.
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