| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Pagan and Christian Creeds by Edward Carpenter: Martius, Etknographie Amerika, etc. (Leipzig, 1867), vol. i, p.
758.
[2] Compare the Aztec ceremonial of lighting a holy fire and
communicating it to the multitude from the wounded breast of a
human victim, celebrated every 52 years at the end of one cycle
and the beginning of another--the constellation of the Pleiades
being in the Zenith (Prescott's Conquest of Mexico, Bk. I, ch.
4).
Think for a moment of a time far back when there were
absolutely NO Almanacs or Calendars, either nicely printed
or otherwise, when all that timid mortals could see was that
Pagan and Christian Creeds |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Human Drift by Jack London: nearly turned a side somersault down the bank. In a stark calm
and heavy tide in the Carquinez Straits, where anchors skate on
the channel-scoured bottom, we were sucked against a big dock and
smashed and bumped down a quarter of a mile of its length before
we could get clear. Two hours afterward, on San Pablo Bay, the
wind was piping up and we were reefing down. It is no fun to pick
up a skiff adrift in a heavy sea and gale. That was our next
task, for our skiff, swamping, parted both towing painters we had
bent on. Before we recovered it we had nearly killed ourselves
with exhaustion, and we certainly had strained the sloop in every
part from keelson to truck. And to cap it all, coming into our
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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 'Twixt Land & Sea by Joseph Conrad: angelic and also boyish.
He accosted me, as though he had been in the habit of seeing me
every day of his life from my earliest childhood, with a whimsical
remark on the appearance of a stout negro woman who was sitting
upon a stool near the edge of the quay. Presently he observed
amiably that I had a very pretty little barque.
I returned this civil speech by saying readily:
"Not so pretty as the Hilda."
At once the corners of his clear-cut, sensitive mouth dropped
dismally.
"Oh, dear! I can hardly bear to look at her now."
'Twixt Land & Sea |
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 In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield:
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