| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Richard III by William Shakespeare: HASTINGS. The tender love I bear your Grace, my lord,
Makes me most forward in this princely presence
To doom th' offenders, whosoe'er they be.
I say, my lord, they have deserved death.
GLOUCESTER. Then be your eyes the witness of their evil.
Look how I am bewitch'd; behold, mine arm
Is like a blasted sapling wither'd up.
And this is Edward's wife, that monstrous witch,
Consorted with that harlot strumpet Shore,
That by their witchcraft thus have marked me.
HASTINGS. If they have done this deed, my noble lord-
Richard III |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Merry Men by Robert Louis Stevenson: source of peril, and a thing to strike and freeze the passer-by;
and he would step more boldly, and bustle aloud among the contents
of the shop, and imitate, with elaborate bravado, the movements of
a busy man at ease in his own house.
But he was now so pulled about by different alarms that, while one
portion of his mind was still alert and cunning, another trembled
on the brink of lunacy. One hallucination in particular took a
strong hold on his credulity. The neighbour hearkening with white
face beside his window, the passer-by arrested by a horrible
surmise on the pavement - these could at worst suspect, they could
not know; through the brick walls and shuttered windows only sounds
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs: When my convivial host discovered that he had told me so
much, and that I was prone to doubtfulness, his foolish pride
assumed the task the old vintage had commenced, and so he
unearthed written evidence in the form of musty manuscript,
and dry official records of the British Colonial Office to support
many of the salient features of his remarkable narrative.
I do not say the story is true, for I did not witness the
happenings which it portrays, but the fact that in the telling
of it to you I have taken fictitious names for the principal
characters quite sufficiently evidences the sincerity of my own
belief that it MAY be true.
Tarzan of the Apes |
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 Jungle Tales of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: greeted by wild shouts from the assembled villagers.
To the stake they led him, and as they pushed him roughly
against it preparatory to binding him there securely
for the dance of death that would presently encircle him,
Tarzan tensed his mighty thews and with a single,
powerful wrench parted the loosened thongs which had
secured his hands. Like thought, for quickness,
he leaped forward among the warriors nearest him.
A blow sent one to earth, as, growling and snarling,
the beast-man leaped upon the breast of another.
His fangs were buried instantly in the jugular of his
The Jungle Tales of Tarzan |
