| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Stories From the Old Attic by Robert Harris: --Marcus Aurelius, VII.22
A sweet disorder in the dress.
--Herrick
Once upon a time, many years from now, technology had continued its
remarkable progress to the point that the construction of artificial
people had finally become possible. These humakins, as they were
called, were made so carefully and with such art that no one could
tell the difference between a real human and an artificial
one--except that the artificial ones were flawless. Physically the
humakins were always young, always beautiful, always fresh; they
never had a hair out of place, never a pimple, never a wrinkle,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: which Brittany abounds. This region is fine for none but noble souls;
persons without sentiments could never live here; poets and barnacles
alone should inhabit it. All that ever brought a population to this
rock were the salt-marshes and the factory which prepares the salt. On
one side the sea; on the other, sand; above, illimitable space."
We had now passed the town, and had reached the species of desert
which separates Croisic from the village of Batz. Imagine, my dear
uncle, a barren track of miles covered with the glittering sand of the
seashore. Here and there a few rocks lifted their heads; you might
have thought them gigantic animals couchant on the dunes. Along the
coast were reefs, around which the water foamed and sparkled, giving
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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 Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom by William and Ellen Craft: for himself and one for his slave to Savannah, the
first port, which was about two hundred miles off.
My master then had the luggage stowed away, and
stepped into one of the best carriages.
But just before the train moved off I peeped
through the window, and, to my great astonishment,
I saw the cabinet-maker with whom I had worked so
long, on the platform. He stepped up to the ticket-
seller, and asked some question, and then com-
menced looking rapidly through the passengers,
and into the carriages. Fully believing that we
Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom |
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 Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: to read it: you, if you will, may do the same.
Philetas, the remaining member of the Alexandrian Triad, seems to have
been a more simple, genial, and graceful spirit than the other two, to
whom he was accordingly esteemed inferior. Only a few fragments are
left; but he was not altogether without his influence, for he was, as I
have just said, one of the models on which Propertius and Ovid formed
themselves; and some, indeed, call him the Father of the Latin elegy,
with its terseness, grace, and clear epigrammatic form of thought, and,
therefore, in a great degree, of our modern eighteenth century poets;
not a useless excellence, seeing that it is, on the whole, good for him
who writes to see clearly what he wants to say, and to be able to make
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