| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: and be glad at heart. There the messenger, the slayer of
Argos, stood and wondered. Now when he had gazed at all
with wonder, anon he went into the wide cave; nor did
Calypso, that fair goddess, fail to know him, when she saw
him face to face; for the gods use not to be strange one to
another, the immortals, not though one have his habitation
far away. But he found not Odysseus, the greathearted,
within the cave, who sat weeping on the shore even as
aforetime, straining his soul with tears and groans and
griefs, and as he wept he looked wistfully over the
unharvested deep. And Calypso, that fair goddess,
The Odyssey |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: inclined to withdraw the offer which he has made you.
To gain your freedom you have but to request me to advise
Zat Arras that you accept the terms of his proposition."
I but shook my head. The youth said no more, and, after
placing the food upon the floor at my side, returned up the
corridor, taking the light with him.
Twice a day for many days this youth came to my cell
with food, and ever the same greetings from Zat Arras.
For a long time I tried to engage him in conversation
upon other matters, but he would not talk, and so,
at length, I desisted.
The Gods of Mars |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Crisis in Russia by Arthur Ransome: present system was in danger of running to seed and turning
into oligarchy, if not autocracy. Until the moment when he
put his listeners against him by a personal attack on Lenin,
there was no doubt that he had with him the sympathies of
quite a considerable section of an exclusively Communist
audience.
Given peace, given an approximate return to normal
conditions, non-partyism may well profoundly modify the
activities of the Communists. It would certainly be strong
enough to prevent the rasher spirits among them from
jeopardizing peace or from risking Russia's chance of
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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 Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: was at the time of which we write completely isolated. The town,
enclosed by massive walls supported by towers, lay below the
fortress,--for the chateau served, in fact, as fort and
pleasure-house. Above the town, with its blue-tiled, crowded roofs
extending then, as now, from the river to the crest of the hill which
commands the right bank, lies a triangular plateau, bounded to the
west by a streamlet, which in these days is of no importance, for it
flows beneath the town; but in the fifteenth century, so say
historians, it formed quite a deep ravine, of which there still
remains a sunken road, almost an abyss, between the suburbs of the
town and the chateau.
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