| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad: though it had been created before light itself.
Looking back after much love and much trouble, the instinct of
primitive man, who seeks to personify the forces of Nature for his
affection and for his fear, is awakened again in the breast of one
civilized beyond that stage even in his infancy. One seems to have
known gales as enemies, and even as enemies one embraces them in
that affectionate regret which clings to the past.
Gales have their personalities, and, after all, perhaps it is not
strange; for, when all is said and done, they are adversaries whose
wiles you must defeat, whose violence you must resist, and yet with
whom you must live in the intimacies of nights and days.
The Mirror of the Sea |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Miracle Mongers and Their Methods by Harry Houdini: as if it were his master-piece.
He has been invited by divers gentlemen
and personages of honour to make the
like evacuation in milk, as he made a
semblance in wine. You are to understand
that when he goes into another room, and
drinks two or three pints of milk. On his
return, which is always speedy, he goes
first to his pail, and afterwards to his
vomit. The milk which comes from him
looks curdled, and shows like curdled milk
Miracle Mongers and Their Methods |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from King James Bible: are in the cities of Samaria, shall surely come to pass.
KI1 13:33 After this thing Jeroboam returned not from his evil way, but
made again of the lowest of the people priests of the high places:
whosoever would, he consecrated him, and he became one of the priests of
the high places.
KI1 13:34 And this thing became sin unto the house of Jeroboam, even to
cut it off, and to destroy it from off the face of the earth.
KI1 14:1 At that time Abijah the son of Jeroboam fell sick.
KI1 14:2 And Jeroboam said to his wife, Arise, I pray thee, and
disguise thyself, that thou be not known to be the wife of Jeroboam; and
get thee to Shiloh: behold, there is Ahijah the prophet, which told me
King James Bible |
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 Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy: same accusation against me, and the dispute broke out. In her
words, in the expression of her face, of her eyes, I noticed
again the hatred that had so astonished me before. With a
brother, friends, my father, I had occasionally quarrelled, but
never had there been between us this fierce spite. Some time
passed. Our mutual hatred was again concealed beneath an access
of sensual desire, and I again consoled myself with the
reflection that these scenes were reparable faults.
"But when they were repeated a third and a fourth time, I
understood that they were not simply faults, but a fatality that
must happen again. I was no longer frightened, I was simply
The Kreutzer Sonata |
