| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Pupil by Henry James: made them the ground of an appeal to poor Pemberton. Poor
Pemberton could laugh now, apart from the comicality of Mrs.
Moreen's mustering so much philosophy for her defence - she seemed
to shake it out of her agitated petticoats, which knocked over the
light gilt chairs - so little did their young companion, MARKED,
unmistakeably marked at the best, strike him as qualified to
repudiate any advantage.
He himself was in for it at any rate. He should have Morgan on his
hands again indefinitely; though indeed he saw the lad had a
private theory to produce which would be intended to smooth this
down. He was obliged to him for it in advance; but the suggested
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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 Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin: to be right; and the balance due for which his lordship promis'd
to give me an order on the paymaster. This was, however, put off
from time to time; and, tho' I call'd often for it by appointment,
I did not get it. At length, just before my departure, he told me
he had, on better consideration, concluded not to mix his accounts
with those of his predecessors. "And you," says he, "when in England,
have only to exhibit your accounts at the treasury, and you will be
paid immediately."
I mention'd, but without effect, the great and unexpected expense I
had been put to by being detain'd so long at New York, as a reason
for my desiring to be presently paid; and on my observing that it was
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Symposium by Xenophon: roll in wealth, yet deem themselves so poor, there is nothing they
will shrink from, neither toil nor danger, in order to add a little to
their store.[55] I have known two brothers,[56] heirs to equal
fortunes, one of whom has enough, more than enough, to cover his
expenditure; the other is in absolute indigence. And so to monarchs,
there are not a few, I perceive, so ravenous of wealth that they will
outdo the veriest vagrants in atrocity. Want[57] prompts a thousand
crimes, you must admit. Why do men steal? why break burglariously into
houses? why hale men and women captive and make slaves of them? Is it
not from want? Nay, there are monarchs who at one fell swoop destroy
whole houses, make wholesale massacre, and oftentimes reduce entire
The Symposium |
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 Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf: It might be love, but it was not the love of man for woman.
Through her half-closed eyelids she watched Terence lying back
in his chair, and she smiled as she saw how big his mouth was,
and his chin so small, and his nose curved like a switchback
with a knob at the end. Naturally, looking like that he was lazy,
and ambitious, and full of moods and faults. She remembered
their quarrels, and in particular how they had been quarreling about
Helen that very afternoon, and she thought how often they would
quarrel in the thirty, or forty, or fifty years in which they would
be living in the same house together, catching trains together,
and getting annoyed because they were so different. But all this
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