| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair: listen to him; I, who do not want to listen to him, stay away,
and it costs me nothing. In the same way there are magazines
about Egyptian coins, and Catholic saints, and flying machines,
and athletic records, and I know nothing about any of them. On
the other hand, if wage slavery were abolished, and I could earn
some spare money without paying tribute to an exploiting
capitalist, then there would be a magazine for the purpose of
interpreting and popularizing the gospel of Friedrich Nietzsche,
the prophet of Evolution, and also of Horace Fletcher, the
inventor of the noble science of clean eating; and incidentally,
perhaps, for the discouraging of long skirts, and the scientific
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Bride of Lammermoor by Walter Scott: you--I think he will consent; but then my mother----!"
She paused, ashamed to express the doubt she felt how far her
father dared to form any positive resolution on this most
important subject without the consent of his lady.
"Your mother, my Lucy!" replied Ravenswood. "She is of the
house of Douglas, a house that has intermarried with mine even
when its glory and power were at the highest; what could your
mother object to my alliance?"
"I did not say object," said Lucy; "but she is jealous of her
rights, and may claim a mother's title to be consulted in the
first instance."
The Bride of Lammermoor |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from From London to Land's End by Daniel Defoe: collegiate or conventual church, and may properly claim to have
more inhabitants in it than any town in Dorsetshire, though it is
neither the county-town, nor does it send members to Parliament.
The church is still a reverend pile, and shows the face of great
antiquity. Here begins the Wiltshire medley clothing (though this
town be in Dorsetshire), of which I shall speak at large in its
place, and therefore I omit any discourse of it here.
Shaftesbury is also on the edge of this county, adjoining to
Wiltshire and Dorsetshire, being fourteen miles from Salisbury,
over that fine down or carpet ground which they call particularly
or properly Salisbury Plain. It has neither house nor town in view
|
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 Poems of Goethe, Bowring, Tr. by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: In vision oft were seen by thee,
Thyself as bride, as bridegroom I.
Oft from thy mouth full many a kiss
In an unguarded hour of bliss
I then would steal, while none were by.
The purest rapture we then knew,
The joy those happy hours gave too,
When tasted, fled, as time fleets on.
What now avails my joy to me?
Like dreams the warmest kisses flee,
Like kisses, soon all joys are gone.
|
