| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: "Yes," replied Chichikov. "Then what are you boggling at?" continued
the Secretary. "Should one soul die, another will be born, and in time
grow up to take the first one's place." Upon that there dawned on our
hero one of the most inspired ideas which ever entered the human
brain. "What a simpleton I am!" he thought to himself. "Here am I
looking about for my mittens when all the time I have got them tucked
into my belt. Why, were I myself to buy up a few souls which are
dead--to buy them before a new revision list shall have been made, the
Council of Public Trust might pay me two hundred roubles apiece for
them, and I might find myself with, say, a capital of two hundred
thousand roubles! The present moment is particularly propitious,
Dead Souls |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: and wicked things, which they wanted not a sort of people really
wicked to encourage them to: and this was running about to fortune-
tellers, cunning-men, and astrologers to know their fortune, or, as it is
vulgarly expressed, to have their fortunes told them, their nativities
calculated, and the like; and this folly presently made the town swarm
with a wicked generation of pretenders to magic, to the black art, as
they called it, and I know not what; nay, to a thousand worse dealings
with the devil than they were really guilty of. And this trade grew so
open and so generally practised that it became common to have signs
and inscriptions set up at doors: 'Here lives a fortune-teller', 'Here lives
an astrologer', 'Here you may have your nativity calculated', and the
A Journal of the Plague Year |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James: recognizes must be a God of universal laws exclusively, a God who
does a wholesale, not a retail business. He cannot accommodate
his processes to the convenience of individuals. The bubbles on
the foam which coats a stormy sea are floating episodes, made and
unmade by the forces of the wind and water. Our private selves
are like those bubbles--epiphenomena, as Clifford, I believe,
ingeniously called them; their destinies weigh nothing and
determine nothing in the world's irremediable currents of events.
[334] How was it ever conceivable, we ask, that a man like
Christian Wolff, in whose dry-as-dust head all the learning of
the early eighteenth century was concentrated, should have
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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 United States Bill of Rights: and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.
VII
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed
twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved,
and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise re-examined in any court
of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
VIII
Excessive bail shall not be required nor excessive fines imposed,
nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights,
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