| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Poems of William Blake by William Blake: Like the doves voice, like transient day, like music in the air:
Ah! gentle may I lay me down and gentle rest my head.
And gentle sleep the sleep of death, and gently hear the voice
Of him that walketh in the garden in the evening time.
The Lilly of the valley breathing in the humble grass
Answerd the lovely maid and said: I am a watry weed,
And I am very small and love to dwell in lowly vales:
So weak the gilded butterfly scarce perches on my head
Yet I am visited from heaven and he that smiles on all
Walks in the valley, and each morn over me spreads his hand
Saying, rejoice thou humble grass, thou new-born lily flower.
Poems of William Blake |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Philebus by Plato: who is empty have at one time a sure hope of being filled, and at other
times be quite in despair?
PROTARCHUS: Very true.
SOCRATES: And has he not the pleasure of memory when he is hoping to be
filled, and yet in that he is empty is he not at the same time in pain?
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Then man and the other animals have at the same time both
pleasure and pain?
PROTARCHUS: I suppose so.
SOCRATES: But when a man is empty and has no hope of being filled, there
will be the double experience of pain. You observed this and inferred that
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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 Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin: our race has been blundering on in the dark, almost without a guide
in this particular, from the farthest trace of time? Show then,
sir, how much is to be done, both to sons and fathers; and invite
all wise men to become like yourself, and other men to become wise.
When we see how cruel statesmen and warriors can be to the human race,
and how absurd distinguished men can be to their acquaintance,
it will be instructive to observe the instances multiply of pacific,
acquiescing manners; and to find how compatible it is to be great
and domestic, enviable and yet good-humored.
"The little private incidents which you will also have to relate,
will have considerable use, as we want, above all things, rules of
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin |
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 Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: troubles by a good deal of wild life out of school, by rambling into
the country on the festivals of the saints, and now and then by
acting plays; notably, that famous one which Rabelais wrote for them
in 1531: "The moral comedy of the man who had a dumb wife;" which
"joyous PATELINAGE" remains unto this day in the shape of a well-
known comic song. That comedy young Rondelet must have seen acted.
The son of a druggist, spicer, and grocer--the three trades were
then combined--in Montpellier, and born in 1507, he had been
destined for the cloister, being a sickly lad. His uncle, one of
the canons of Maguelonne, near by, had even given him the revenues
of a small chapel--a job of nepotism which was common enough in
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