| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg by Mark Twain: you the remark, well satisfied that if you are not the right man you
will seek and find the right one and see that poor Goodson's debt of
gratitude for the service referred to is paid. This is the remark
'YOU ARE FAR FROM BEING A BAD MAN: GO, AND REFORM.'
"HOWARD L. STEPHENSON."
"Oh, Edward, the money is ours, and I am so grateful, OH, so
grateful,--kiss me, dear, it's for ever since we kissed--and we
needed it so--the money--and now you are free of Pinkerton and his
bank, and nobody's slave any more; it seems to me I could fly for
joy."
It was a happy half-hour that the couple spent there on the settee
The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Aesop's Fables by Aesop: two curious things sticking out of the hay?" And when the stable
boys came to look they discovered the Hart, and soon made an end
of him. He thus learnt that
Nothing escapes the master's eye.
The Fox and the Grapes
One hot summer's day a Fox was strolling through an orchard
till he came to a bunch of Grapes just ripening on a vine which
had been trained over a lofty branch. "Just the thing to quench
my thirst," quoth he. Drawing back a few paces, he took a run and
a jump, and just missed the bunch. Turning round again with a
One, Two, Three, he jumped up, but with no greater success. Again
Aesop's Fables |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: life. The infinite variety which differentiates individual men can
only be explained by this twofold existence, which, again, is proved
and made intelligible by that variety.
In point of fact, the wide distance between a man whose torpid
intelligence condemns him to evident stupidity, and one who, by the
exercise of his inner life, has acquired the gift of some power,
allows us to suppose that there is as great a difference between men
of genius and other beings as there is between the blind and those who
see. This hypothesis, since it extends creation beyond all limits,
gives us, as it were, the clue to heaven. The beings who, here on
earth, are apparently mingled without distinction, are there
Louis Lambert |
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 Works of Samuel Johnson by Samuel Johnson: formerly celebrated for wit and beauty, and are still
generally admired by those that value themselves
upon their understanding, and love to talk of vice
and virtue, nature and simplicity, and beauty and
propriety; but if there was not some hope of meeting
me, scarcely a creature would come near them
that wears a fashionable coat. These ladies, Mr.
Rambler, have had me under their government fifteen
years and a half, and have all that time been
endeavouring to deceive me by such representations
of life as I now find not to be true; but I know not
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