| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Dynamiter by Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Van De Grift Stevenson: fail in his devoirs to any lady; but, in the other scale, he
was a man averse from amorous adventures. He looked east and
west; but the houses that looked down upon this interview
remained inexorably shut; and he saw himself, though in the
full glare of the day's eye, cut off from any human
intervention. His looks returned at last upon the suppliant.
He remarked with irritation that she was charming both in
face and figure, elegantly dressed and gloved; a lady
undeniable; the picture of distress and innocence; weeping
and lost in the city of diurnal sleep.
'Madam,' he said, 'I protest you have no cause to fear
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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 Pupil by Henry James: vacant American - a big bill with a flourishy heading and no items;
so that one of Paula's "ideas" was probably that this time she
hadn't missed fire - by which straight shot indeed she would have
shattered the general cohesion. And if the cohesion was to crumble
what would become of poor Pemberton? He felt quite enough bound up
with them to figure to his alarm as a dislodged block in the
edifice.
It was Morgan who eventually asked if no supper had been ordered
for him; sitting with him below, later, at the dim delayed meal, in
the presence of a great deal of corded green plush, a plate of
ornamental biscuit and an aloofness marked on the part of the
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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 The Economist by Xenophon: deserve the appellation of a gentleman. He was indeed a "beautiful and
good" man.[11]
[11] Or, "a man 'beautiful and good,' as the phrase goes."
Crit. There is nothing I should better like to hear, since of all
titles this is the one I covet most the right to bear.
Soc. Well, then, I will tell you how I came to subject him to my
inquiry. It did not take me long to go the round of various good
carpenters, good bronze-workers, painters, sculptors, and so forth. A
brief period was sufficient for the contemplation of themselves and of
their most admired works of art. But when it came to examining those
who bore the high-sounding title "beautiful and good," in order to
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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 Common Sense by Thomas Paine: Yet I should be glad to ask how they suppose kings came at first? The
question admits but of three answers, viz. either by lot, by election,
or by usurpation. If the first king was taken by lot, it establishes a
precedent for the next, which excludes hereditary succession. Saul was
by lot, yet the succession was not hereditary, neither does it appear
from that transaction there was any intention it ever should be. If the
first king of any country was by election, that likewise establishes a
precedent for the next; for to say, that the RIGHT of all future
generations is taken away, by the act of the first electors,
in their choice not only of a king, but of a family of kings for ever,
hath no parallel in or out of scripture but the doctrine of original sin,
Common Sense |
