| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Apology by Plato: in the course of his life better and more pleasantly than this one, I think
that any man, I will not say a private man, but even the great king will
not find many such days or nights, when compared with the others. Now if
death be of such a nature, I say that to die is gain; for eternity is then
only a single night. But if death is the journey to another place, and
there, as men say, all the dead abide, what good, O my friends and judges,
can be greater than this? If indeed when the pilgrim arrives in the world
below, he is delivered from the professors of justice in this world, and
finds the true judges who are said to give judgment there, Minos and
Rhadamanthus and Aeacus and Triptolemus, and other sons of God who were
righteous in their own life, that pilgrimage will be worth making. What
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: But we are all in the hands of the Gods; and Pip jumped again. It
was under very similar circumstances to the first performance; but
this time he did not breast out the line; and hence, when the whale
started to run, Pip was left behind on the sea, like a hurried
traveller's trunk. Alas! Stubb was but too true to his word. It
was a beautiful, bounteous, blue day; the spangled sea calm and
cool, and flatly stretching away, all round, to the horizon, like
gold-beater's skin hammered out to the extremest. Bobbing up and
down in that sea, Pip's ebon head showed like a head of cloves. No
boat-knife was lifted when he fell so rapidly astern. Stubb's
inexorable back was turned upon him; and the whale was winged. In
Moby Dick |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin: knelt and prayed: in their prayers they mentioned Mr.
Bushby and his family, and the missionaries, each separately
in his respective district.
December 26th. -- Mr. Bushby offered to take Mr. Sulivan
and myself in his boat some miles up the river to Cawa-
Cawa, and proposed afterwards to walk on to the village of
Waiomio, where there are some curious rocks. Following
one of the arms of the bay, we enjoyed a pleasant row, and
passed through pretty scenery, until we came to a village,
beyond which the boat could not pass. From this place a
chief and a party of men volunteered to walk with us to
The Voyage of the Beagle |
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 Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: of all ages and sizes, from the farm and the neighborhood, stood
forming a pyramid of shining black faces at every door and
window; gazing with delight at the scene; rolling their white
eye-balls, and showing grinning rows of ivory from ear to ear.
How could the flogger of urchins be otherwise than animated and
joyous? the lady of his heart was his partner in the dance, and
smiling graciously in reply to all his amorous oglings; while
Brom Bones, sorely smitten with love and jealousy, sat brooding
by himself in one corner.
When the dance was at an end, Ichabod was attracted to a
knot of the sager folks, who, with Old V an Tassel, sat smoking
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow |
