| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave by Frederick Douglass: it. He asked me what I wanted. I told him, to let
me get a new home; that as sure as I lived with Mr.
Covey again, I should live with but to die with
him; that Covey would surely kill me; he was in a
fair way for it. Master Thomas ridiculed the idea
that there was any danger of Mr. Covey's killing
me, and said that he knew Mr. Covey; that he was
a good man, and that he could not think of taking
me from him; that, should he do so, he would lose
the whole year's wages; that I belonged to Mr. Covey
for one year, and that I must go back to him, come
The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini: this turn of events to the premature surrender she had made in
defiance of his sound worldly advice. Father and daughter alike
were left to assign the Marquis' desertion, naturally enough, to
the riot at the Feydau. They laid that with the rest to the account
of Scaramouche, and were forced in bitterness to admit that the
scoundrel had taken a superlative revenge. C1imene may even have
come to consider that it would have paid her better to have run a
straight course with Scaramouche and by marrying him to have trusted
to his undoubted talents to place her on the summit to which her
ambition urged her, and to which it was now futile for her to aspire.
If so, that reflection must have been her sufficient punishment.
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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 From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne: "Perfect!" exclaimed the major.
"Only it is more expensive."
"What matter?" cried J. T. Maston.
"Finally, it imparts to projectiles a velocity four times
superior to that of gunpowder. I will even add, that if we mix
it with one-eighth of its own weight of nitrate of potassium,
its expansive force is again considerably augmented."
"Will that be necessary?" asked the major.
"I think not," replied Barbicane. "So, then, in place of
1,600,000 pounds of powder, we shall have but 400,000 pounds of
fulminating cotton; and since we can, without danger, compress
From the Earth to the Moon |
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 King James Bible: do for our sister in the day when she shall be spoken for?
SON 8:9 If she be a wall, we will build upon her a palace of silver:
and if she be a door, we will inclose her with boards of cedar.
SON 8:10 I am a wall, and my breasts like towers: then was I in his
eyes as one that found favour.
SON 8:11 Solomon had a vineyard at Baalhamon; he let out the vineyard
unto keepers; every one for the fruit thereof was to bring a thousand
pieces of silver.
SON 8:12 My vineyard, which is mine, is before me: thou, O Solomon,
must have a thousand, and those that keep the fruit thereof two hundred.
SON 8:13 Thou that dwellest in the gardens, the companions hearken to
King James Bible |
