| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Nada the Lily by H. Rider Haggard: was called his father, and Nada, she who was said to be his twin
sister.
Now it must be told of Nada that as the boy Umslopogaas was the
strongest and bravest of children, so the girl Nada was the gentlest
and most fair. Of a truth, my father, I believe that her blood was not
all Zulu, though this I cannot say for certain. At the least, her eyes
were softer and larger than those of our people, her hair longer and
less tightly curled, and her skin was lighter--more of the colour of
pure copper. These things she had from her mother, Macropha; though
she was fairer than Macropha--fairer, indeed, than any woman of my
people whom I have seen. Her mother, Macropha, my wife, was of Swazi
Nada the Lily |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Mucker by Edgar Rice Burroughs: much for me."
Bridge eyed the packages as Billy deposited them carefully
and one at a time upon the grass beside the fire. The milk was
in a clean little graniteware pail, the eggs had been placed in a
paper bag, while the other articles were wrapped in pieces of
newspaper.
As the opening of each revealed its contents, fresh, clean,
and inviting, Bridge closed one eye and cocked the other up
at Billy.
"Did he die hard?" he inquired.
"Did who die hard?" demanded the other.
The Mucker |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad: when he went out he locked his door, and took the key away with
him.
Ossipon had a vision of these round black-rimmed spectacles
progressing along the streets on the top of an omnibus, their self-
confident glitter falling here and there on the walls of houses or
lowered upon the heads of the unconscious stream of people on the
pavements. The ghost of a sickly smile altered the set of
Ossipon's thick lips at the thought of the walls nodding, of people
running for life at the sight of those spectacles. If they had
only known! What a panic! He murmured interrogatively: "Been
sitting long here?"
The Secret Agent |
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 Theaetetus by Plato: are some of them in groups, and some single, which are flying about
everywhere; and let us suppose a hunt after the science of odd and even, or
some other science. The possession of the birds is clearly not the same as
the having them in the hand. And the original chase of them is not the
same as taking them in the hand when they are already caged.
This distinction between use and possession saves us from the absurdity of
supposing that we do not know what we know, because we may know in one
sense, i.e. possess, what we do not know in another, i.e. use. But have we
not escaped one difficulty only to encounter a greater? For how can the
exchange of two kinds of knowledge ever become false opinion? As well
might we suppose that ignorance could make a man know, or that blindness
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