| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Iliad by Homer: Peleus before Andromache."
The son of Saturn bowed his portentous brows, and Hector fitted
the armour to his body, while terrible Mars entered into him, and
filled his whole body with might and valour. With a shout he
strode in among the allies, and his armour flashed about him so
that he seemed to all of them like the great son of Peleus
himself. He went about among them and cheered them on--Mesthles,
Glaucus, Medon, Thersilochus, Asteropaeus, Deisenor and
Hippothous, Phorcys, Chromius and Ennomus the augur. All these
did he exhort saying, "Hear me, allies from other cities who are
here in your thousands, it was not in order to have a crowd about
The Iliad |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Where There's A Will by Mary Roberts Rinehart: "Something's moving inside that fence corner."
"It's them deers," Mike's voice this time. We could make out the
three figures. "Darned nuisance, them deers is. They'd have
been shot long ago if the spring-house girl hadn't objected. She
thinks she's the whole cheese around here."
"Set it down again," Mr. von Inwald panted. We heard the rattle
of bottles as they put down the basket, and the next instant
Thoburn's fat hand was resting on the rail of the fence over our
heads. I could feel Miss Patty trembling beside me.
But he didn't look over. He stood there resting, breathing hard,
and swearing at the weather, while Mike waited, in surly silence,
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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 Euthyphro by Plato: EUTHYPHRO: Yes.
SOCRATES: And that which is dear to the gods is loved by them, and is in a
state to be loved of them because it is loved of them?
EUTHYPHRO: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Then that which is dear to the gods, Euthyphro, is not holy, nor
is that which is holy loved of God, as you affirm; but they are two
different things.
EUTHYPHRO: How do you mean, Socrates?
SOCRATES: I mean to say that the holy has been acknowledged by us to be
loved of God because it is holy, not to be holy because it is loved.
EUTHYPHRO: Yes.
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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 The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: her peculiarities, . . . has not attracted more attention, . . . and
that habit has rendered it, as it were, imperceptible to the English
themselves--that England was the only country in which the system of
caste had been not only modified, but effectually destroyed. The
nobility and the middle classes followed the same business, embraced
the same professions, and, what is far more significant,
intermarried with each other. The daughter of the greatest
nobleman" (and this, if true of the eighteenth century, has become
far more true of the nineteenth) "could already, without disgrace,
marry a man of yesterday." . . .
"It has often been remarked that the English nobility has been more
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