| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The United States Constitution: and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.
ARTICLE THREE
Section 1. The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested
in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may
from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme
and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good behavior,
and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation,
which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.
Section 2. The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity,
arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties
made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;--to all Cases affecting
The United States Constitution |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Moral Emblems by Robert Louis Stevenson: The brindled Tiger loud may roar,
High may the hovering Vulture soar;
Alas! regardless of them all,
Soon shall the empurpled glutton sprawl -
Soon, in the desert's hushed repose,
Shall trumpet tidings through his nose!
Alack, unwise! that nasal song
Shall be the Ounce's dinner-gong!
A blemish in the cut appears;
Alas! it cost both blood and tears.
The glancing graver swerved aside,
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Ursula by Honore de Balzac: Your child is looking at the flowers. She shows them to her nurse--she
is making holes in the earth with her trowel, and planting seeds. The
nurse is raking the path. The young girl is pure as an angel, but the
beginning of love is there, faint as the dawn--"
"Love for whom?" asked the doctor, who, until now, would have listened
to no word said to him by somnambulists. He considered it all
jugglery.
"You know nothing--though you have lately been uneasy about her
health," answered the woman. "Her heart has followed the dictates of
nature."
"A woman of the people to talk like this!" cried the doctor.
|
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 Phaedo by Plato: danger.
Of what nature? I said.
Lest we become misologists, he replied, no worse thing can happen to a man
than this. For as there are misanthropists or haters of men, there are
also misologists or haters of ideas, and both spring from the same cause,
which is ignorance of the world. Misanthropy arises out of the too great
confidence of inexperience;--you trust a man and think him altogether true
and sound and faithful, and then in a little while he turns out to be false
and knavish; and then another and another, and when this has happened
several times to a man, especially when it happens among those whom he
deems to be his own most trusted and familiar friends, and he has often
|
