| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Talisman by Walter Scott: moving speck on the bosom of the plain, and knew at the same time
they were not so distant from the camp of Saladin, but what they
might be in a moment surprised and swept off by an overpowering
host of his fiery-footed cavalry, should the pagan be faithless
enough to embrace an opportunity thus tempting. But when she
hinted these suspicions to Richard he repelled them with
displeasure and disdain. "It were worse than ingratitude," he
said, "to doubt the good faith of the generous Soldan."
Yet the same doubts and fears recurred more than once, not to the
timid mind of the Queen alone, but to the firmer and more candid
soul of Edith Plantagenet, who had no such confidence in the
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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: be proud of my humility.
[Thus far written at Passy, 1741.]
["I am now about to write at home, August, 1788, but can not have
the help expected from my papers, many of them being lost in the war.
I have, however, found the following."]<8>
<8>This is a marginal memorandum.--B.
HAVING mentioned a great and extensive project which I had
conceiv'd, it seems proper that some account should be here
given of that project and its object. Its first rise in my
mind appears in the following little paper, accidentally preserv'd, viz.:
Observations on my reading history, in Library, May 19th, 1731.
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 Before Adam by Jack London: sleep.
Snakes? Long before I had heard of the existence of
snakes, I was tormented by them in my sleep. They
lurked for me in the forest glades; leaped up,
striking, under my feet; squirmed off through the dry
grass or across naked patches of rock; or pursued me
into the tree-tops, encircling the trunks with their
great shining bodies, driving me higher and higher or
farther and farther out on swaying and crackling
branches, the ground a dizzy distance beneath me.
Snakes!--with their forked tongues, their beady eyes
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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 Somebody's Little Girl by Martha Young: ``Bessie Bell! Bessie, Bessie, Bessie Bell!''
But the lady at her side looked down at the child as if she were
afraid. Bessie Bell knew how sorrowful it was to be afraid, so she
stopped patting her hands and laughing,--for she didn't know why she
had begun to do it--and she laid her hand again on the lady's hand,
just because she knew how sorrowful it was to be afraid.
But Bessie Bell could not see anything to be afraid of: the band was
playing just as gaily as ever, and the children, and the nurses, and
the babies, and the parasols were as gay as ever.
``Whereis your mama?'' asked the lady, taking fast hold of the little
hand that patted her hand.
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