| 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: pushed out the whole of one round window-pane, sat down, and enjoyed
herself with it. Suddenly the door opened, and a woman as old as the
hills, who supported herself on crutches, came creeping out. Hansel
and Gretel were so terribly frightened that they let fall what they
had in their hands. The old woman, however, nodded her head, and said:
'Oh, you dear children, who has brought you here? do come in, and stay
with me. No harm shall happen to you.' She took them both by the hand,
and led them into her little house. Then good food was set before
them, milk and pancakes, with sugar, apples, and nuts. Afterwards two
pretty little beds were covered with clean white linen, and Hansel and
Gretel lay down in them, and thought they were in heaven.
Grimm's Fairy Tales |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Jolly Corner by Henry James: the steadier clearance, was that Alice Staverton had for a long
unspeakable moment not doubted he was dead.
"It must have been that I WAS." He made it out as she held him.
"Yes - I can only have died. You brought me literally to life.
Only," he wondered, his eyes rising to her, "only, in the name of
all the benedictions, how?"
It took her but an instant to bend her face and kiss him, and
something in the manner of it, and in the way her hands clasped and
locked his head while he felt the cool charity and virtue of her
lips, something in all this beatitude somehow answered everything.
"And now I keep you," she said.
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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 I Have A Dream by Martin Luther King, Jr.: fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be
guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory
note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of
honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro
people a bad check which has come back marked "insufficient
funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is
bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds
in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have
come to cash this check -- a check that will give us upon demand
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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 The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson: both for his life and reason.
"Compose yourself," said I.
He turned a dreadful smile to me, and as if with the decision
of despair, plucked away the sheet. At sight of the contents, he
uttered one loud sob of such immense relief that I sat petrified.
And the next moment, in a voice that was already fairly well under
control, "Have you a graduated glass?" he asked.
I rose from my place with something of an effort and gave him
what he asked.
He thanked me with a smiling nod, measured out a few minims of
the red tincture and added one of the powders. The mixture, which
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde |
