| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Georgics by Virgil: Nor shear the fleeces even, gnawed through and through
With foul disease, nor touch the putrid webs;
But, had one dared the loathly weeds to try,
Red blisters and an unclean sweat o'erran
His noisome limbs, till, no long tarriance made,
The fiery curse his tainted frame devoured.
GEORGIC IV
Of air-born honey, gift of heaven, I now
Take up the tale. Upon this theme no less
Look thou, Maecenas, with indulgent eye.
A marvellous display of puny powers,
Georgics |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Magic of Oz by L. Frank Baum: a goose, to Ruggedo's horror and dismay. But the Hungry Tiger had
witnessed all these transformations, and he was watching to see which
of those present was to blame for them. When Ruggedo spoke to Kiki,
the Hungry Tiger knew that he was the magician, so he made a sudden
spring and hurled his great body full upon the form of the Li-Mon-Eag
crouching against the rock. Kiki didn't see the Tiger coming because
his face was still in the hollow, and the heavy body of the tiger bore
him to the earth just as he said "Pyrzqxgl!" for the fifth time.
So now the tiger which was crushing him changed to a rabbit, and
relieved of its weight, Kiki sprang up and, spreading his eagle's
wings, flew into the branches of a tree, where no beast could easily
The Magic of Oz |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: nobles were on trial. But to my amazement I saw no single
friendly face among them. Practically all were Zodangans,
and it was I to whom Zodanga owed her defeat at the
hands of the green hordes and her subsequent vassalage to
Helium. There could be little justice here for John Carter,
or his son, or for the great Thark who had commanded the
savage tribesmen who overran Zodanga's broad avenues,
looting, burning, and murdering.
About us the vast circular coliseum was packed to its full
capacity. All classes were represented--all ages, and both
sexes. As we entered the hall the hum of subdued conversation
The Gods of Mars |
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 Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte by Karl Marx: save, society once for all, by proclaiming their own regime as supreme,
and relieve bourgeois society wholly of the care of ruling itself? The
barrack and the bivouac, the sabre and the musket, the moustache and the
soldier's jacket were all the more bound to hit upon this idea, seeing
that they could then also expect better cash payment for their increased
deserts, while at the merely periodic states of siege and the transitory
savings of society at the behest of this or that bourgeois faction, very
little solid matter fell to them except some dead and wounded, besides
some friendly bourgeois grimaces. Should not the military, finally, in
and for its own interest, play the game of "state of siege," and
simultaneously besiege the bourgeois exchanges? Moreover, it must not
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