| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Paradise Lost by John Milton: Then, all thy saints assembled, thou shalt judge
Bad Men and Angels; they, arraigned, shall sink
Beneath thy sentence; Hell, her numbers full,
Thenceforth shall be for ever shut. Mean while
The world shall burn, and from her ashes spring
New Heaven and Earth, wherein the just shall dwell,
And, after all their tribulations long,
See golden days, fruitful of golden deeds,
With joy and peace triumphing, and fair truth.
Then thou thy regal scepter shalt lay by,
For regal scepter then no more shall need,
Paradise Lost |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Faraday as a Discoverer by John Tyndall: mind. It must be remembered here, that though Faraday lived amid
such speculations he did not rate them highly, and that he was
prepared at any moment to change them or let them go. They spurred
him on, but they did not hamper him. His theoretic notions were
fluent; and when minds less plastic than his own attempted to render
those fluxional images rigid, he rebelled. He warns Phillips
moreover, that from first to last, 'he merely threw out as matter
for speculation the vague impressions of his mind; for he gave
nothing as the result of sufficient consideration, or as the settled
conviction, or even probable conclusion at which he had arrived.'
The gist of this communication is that gravitating force acts in
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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 Moral Emblems by Robert Louis Stevenson: Wild as the wild sea-eagles - Bob
His widowed dam contrives to rob,
And thus with great originality
Effectuates his personality.
Thenceforth his terror-haunted flight
He follows through the starry night;
And with the early morning breeze,
Behold him on the azure seas.
The master of a trading dandy
Hires Robin for a go of brandy;
And all the happy hills of home
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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 Mysterious Island by Jules Verne: mine. Another long fiber, previously impregnated with sulphur, was attached
to the middle of the first, by one end, while the other lay on the ground
several feet distant from the mine. The second fiber being set on fire, it
would burn till it reached the first. This catching fire in its turn, would
break, and the mass of iron would fall on the nitro-glycerine. This
apparatus being then arranged, the engineer, after having sent his
companions to a distance, filled the hole, so that the nitro-glycerine was
on a level with the opening; then he threw a few drops of it on the surface
of the rock, above which the mass of iron was already suspended.
This done, Harding lit the end of the sulphured fiber, and leaving the
place, he returned with his companions to the Chimneys.
The Mysterious Island |
