| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: perfectly sure of himself and certain of his end. Yet he was then
upon the brink of his last overthrow. He had set himself to found
the strangest thing in our society: one of those periodical sheets
from which men suppose themselves to learn opinions; in which young
gentlemen from the universities are encouraged, at so much a line,
to garble facts, insult foreign nations and calumniate private
individuals; and which are now the source of glory, so that if a
man's name be often enough printed there, he becomes a kind of
demigod; and people will pardon him when he talks back and forth,
as they do for Mr. Gladstone; and crowd him to suffocation on
railway platforms, as they did the other day to General Boulanger;
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Jungle Tales of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: ready to fight, if necessary; but still sure that no flesh
and blood gorilla stood before him.
The thing should be fading away into thin air by now,
thought Tarzan, or changing into something else;
yet it did not. Instead it loomed clear-cut and real
as Bolgani himself, the magnificent dark coat glistening
with life and health in a bar of sunlight which shot
across the cabin through the high window behind the young
Lord Greystoke. This was quite the most realistic
of his sleep adventures, thought Tarzan, as he passively
awaited the next amusing incident.
The Jungle Tales of Tarzan |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: the human mind are worthy matter for scientific induction.
And thus grew up in Egypt a monastic world, of such vastness that it was
said to equal in number the laity. This produced, no doubt, an enormous
increase in the actual amount of moral evil. But it produced three
other effects, which were the ruin of Alexandria. First, a continually
growing enervation and numerical decrease of the population; next, a
carelessness of, and contempt for social and political life; and lastly,
a most brutalising effect on the lay population; who, told that they
were, and believing themselves to be, beings of a lower order, and
living by a lower standard, sank down more and more generation after
generation. They were of the world, and the ways of the world they must
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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 The Odyssey by Homer: and waves on to my island. I got fond of him and cherished him,
and had set my heart on making him immortal, so that he should
never grow old all his days; still I cannot cross Jove, nor
bring his counsels to nothing; therefore, if he insists upon it,
let the man go beyond the seas again; but I cannot send him
anywhere myself for I have neither ships nor men who can take
him. Nevertheless I will readily give him such advice, in all
good faith, as will be likely to bring him safely to his own
country."
"Then send him away," said Mercury, "or Jove will be angry with
you and punish you".
The Odyssey |
