| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: for that they were all dead.
And, indeed, the work of removing the dead bodies by carts was
now grown so very odious and dangerous that it was complained of
that the bearers did not take care to dear such houses where all the
inhabitants were dead, but that sometimes the bodies lay several days
unburied, till the neighbouring families were offended with the
stench, and consequently infected; and this neglect of the officers was
such that the churchwardens and constables were summoned to look
after it, and even the justices of the Hamlets were obliged to venture
their lives among them to quicken and encourage them, for
innumerable of the bearers died of the distemper, infected by the
A Journal of the Plague Year |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Poems of Goethe, Bowring, Tr. by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: And the darling door I open'd softly!
In the parlour found I not the maiden,
Found the maiden not within her closet,
Then her chamber-door I gently open'd,
When I found her wrapp'd in pleasing slumbers,
Fully dress'd, and lying on the sofa.
While at work had slumber stolen o'er her;
For her knitting and her needle found I
Resting in her folded bands so tender;
And I placed myself beside her softly,
And held counsel, whether I should wake her.
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Straight Deal by Owen Wister: under George III, Mr. Charles Altschul has made an examination and given
an analysis of a great number of those school textbooks wherein our boys
and girls have been and are still being taught a history of our
Revolution in the distorted form that I have briefly summarized. His book
was published in 1917, by the George H. Doran Company, New York, and is
entitled The American Revolution in our School Textbooks. Here following
are some of his discoveries:
Of forty school histories used twenty years ago in sixty-eight cities,
and in many more unreported, four tell the truth about King George's
pocket Parliament, and thirty-two suppress it. To-day our books are not
quite so bad, but it is not very much better; and-to-day, be it added,
|
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 Child of Storm by H. Rider Haggard: salute of "Bayete", that came from them in a deep and simultaneous roar
of sound. When its echoes died away, in the midst of a deep silence
Panda spoke, saying:
"Bring forth the Nyanga [doctor]. Let the umhlahlo [that is, the
witch-trial] begin!"
There was a long pause, and then in the open gateway appeared a solitary
figure that at first sight seemed to be scarcely human, the figure of a
dwarf with a gigantic head, from which hung long, white hair, plaited
into locks. It was Zikali, no other!
Quite unattended, and naked save for his moocha, for he had on him none
of the ordinary paraphernalia of the witch-doctor, he waddled forward
Child of Storm |
