| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from King Henry VI by William Shakespeare: For this world frowns and Edward's sun is clouded.
WARWICK.
How now, my lord? what hap? what hope of good?
[Enter GEORGE.]
GEORGE.
Our hap is lost, our hope but sad despair;
Our ranks are broke and ruin follows us.
What counsel give you? whither shall we fly?
EDWARD.
Bootless is flight, they follow us with wings;
And weak we are and cannot shun pursuit.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from In Darkest England and The Way Out by General William Booth: Nowadays everything comes to us in tins. We have coffee tins,
meat tins, salmon tins, and tins ad nauseam. Tin is becoming more and
more the universal envelope of the rations of man. But when you have
extracted the contents of the tin what can you do with it?
Huge mountains of empty tins lie about every dustyard, for as yet no
man has discovered a means of utilising them when in great masses.
Their market price is about four or five shillings a ton, but they are
so light that it would take half a dozen trucks to hold a ton.
They formerly burnt them for the sake of the solder, but now, by a new
process, they are jointed without solder. The problem of the
utilisation of the tins is one to which we would have to address
In Darkest England and The Way Out |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: to be quite grown up. I have already three chapters about as good
as done; by which, of course, as you know, I mean till further
notice or the next discovery. I like biography far better than
fiction myself: fiction is too free. In biography you have your
little handful of facts, little bits of a puzzle, and you sit and
think, and fit 'em together this way and that, and get up and throw
'em down, and say damn, and go out for a walk. And it's real
soothing; and when done, gives an idea of finish to the writer that
is very peaceful. Of course, it's not really so finished as quite
a rotten novel; it always has and always must have the incurable
illogicalities of life about it, the fathoms of slack and the miles
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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 Macbeth by William Shakespeare: Within my Swords length set him, if he scape
Heauen forgiue him too
Mal. This time goes manly:
Come go we to the King, our Power is ready,
Our lacke is nothing but our leaue. Macbeth
Is ripe for shaking, and the Powres aboue
Put on their Instruments: Receiue what cheere you may,
The Night is long, that neuer findes the Day.
Exeunt.
Actus Quintus. Scena Prima.
Enter a Doctor of Physicke, and a Wayting Gentlewoman.
Macbeth |
