| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Love and Friendship by Jane Austen: You will think this a good dash of mine my dear Mary, but you
know that I am not wanting for Impudence when I have any end in
veiw. "Are you pleased with the Country Miss Grenville? Do you
find it equal to the one you have left?"
"Much superior Ma'am in point of Beauty." She sighed. I longed to
know for why.
"But the face of any Country however beautiful said I, can be but
a poor consolation for the loss of one's dearest Freinds." She
shook her head, as if she felt the truth of what I said. My
Curiosity was so much raised, that I was resolved at any rate to
satisfy it.
Love and Friendship |
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: keeping him close to his trade; but I remember well his being
frequently visited by leading people, who consulted him for his
opinion in affairs of the town or of the church he belonged to,
and showed a good deal of respect for his judgment and advice:
he was also much consulted by private persons about their affairs
when any difficulty occurred, and frequently chosen an arbitrator
between contending parties.
At his table he liked to have, as often as he could, some sensible
friend or neighbor to converse with, and always took care to start
some ingenious or useful topic for discourse, which might tend
to improve the minds of his children. By this means he turned
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 Melmoth Reconciled by Honore de Balzac: discharged a blunderbuss at his head.
The door of the room, the walls of the room, the shutters of the
windows in the room, the whole place, in fact, was lined with sheet-
iron a third of an inch in thickness, concealed behind the thin wooden
paneling. The shutters had been closed, the door had been shut. If
ever man could feel confident that he was absolutely alone, and that
there was no remote possibility of being watched by prying eyes, that
man was the cashier of the house of Nucingen and Company, in the Rue
Saint-Lazare.
Accordingly the deepest silence prevailed in that iron cave. The fire
had died out in the stove, but the room was full of that tepid warmth
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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 Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland by Olive Schreiner: like it! All men were brothers, and God loved a black man as well as a
white; Mashonas and Matabele were poor ignorant folk, and we had to take
care of them. And then he started out, that we ought to let this man go;
we ought to give him food for the road, and tell him to go back to his
people, and tell them we hadn't come to take their land but to teach them
and love them. 'It's hard to love a nigger, Captain, but we must try it;
we must try it!'--And every five minutes he'd break out with, 'And I think
this is a man I know, Captain; I'm not sure, but I think he comes from up
Lo Magundis way!'--as if any born devil cared whether a bloody nigger came
from Lo Magundis or anywhere else! I'm sure he said it fifteen times. And
then he broke out, 'I don't mean that I'm better than you or anybody else,
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