| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Macbeth by William Shakespeare: Now, if you haue a station in the file,
Not i'th' worst ranke of Manhood, say't,
And I will put that Businesse in your Bosomes,
Whose execution takes your Enemie off,
Grapples you to the heart; and loue of vs,
Who weare our Health but sickly in his Life,
Which in his Death were perfect
2.Murth. I am one, my Liege,
Whom the vile Blowes and Buffets of the World
Hath so incens'd, that I am recklesse what I doe,
To spight the World
Macbeth |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Crisis in Russia by Arthur Ransome: Townsfolk are starving, and in winter, cold. People living in
rooms in a flat, complete strangers to each other, by general
agreement bring all their beds into the kitchen. In the
kitchen soup is made once a day. There is a little warmth
there beside the natural warmth of several human beings in a
small room. There it is possible to sleep. During the whole
of last winter, in the case I have in mind, there were no
means of heating the other rooms, where the temperature
was almost always far below freezing point. It is difficult to
make the conditions real except by individual examples. The
lack of medicines, due directly to the blockade, seems to
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare: You doe me mischiefe. Fye Demetrius,
Your wrongs doe set a scandall on my sexe:
We cannot fight for loue, as men may doe;
We should be woo'd, and were not made to wooe.
I follow thee, and make a heauen of hell,
To die vpon the hand I loue so well.
Enter.
Ob. Fare thee well Nymph, ere he do leaue this groue,
Thou shalt flie him, and he shall seeke thy loue.
Hast thou the flower there? Welcome wanderer.
Enter Pucke.
A Midsummer Night's Dream |
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 Selected Writings of Guy De Maupassant by Guy De Maupassant: strength, any courage, any self-control, nor even any power to
set my own will in motion. I have no power left to WILL anything,
but some one does it for me and I obey.
August 14. I am lost! Somebody possesses my soul and governs it!
Somebody orders all my acts, all my movements, all my thoughts. I
am no longer master of myself, nothing except an enslaved and
terrified spectator of the things which I do. I wish to go out; I
cannot. HE does not wish to; and so I remain, trembling and
distracted in the armchair in which he keeps me sitting. I merely
wish to get up and to rouse myself, so as to think that I am
still master of myself: I cannot! I am riveted to my chair, and
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