| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tono Bungay by H. G. Wells: place. In spite of my preoccupation with Beatrice, I stored a
queer little memory of the contrast between the two other women;
my aunt, tall, slender and awkward, in a simple blue homekeeping
dress, an omnivorous reader and a very authentic wit, and the
lady of pedigree, short and plump, dressed with Victorian
fussiness, living at the intellectual level of palmistry and
genteel fiction, pink in the face and generally flustered by a
sense of my aunt's social strangeness and disposed under the
circumstances to behave rather like an imitation of the more
queenly moments of her own cook. The one seemed made of
whalebone, the other of dough. My aunt was nervous, partly
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Pellucidar by Edgar Rice Burroughs: ancient traditions of the inner world would have been
massacred or enslaved after we had conquered them;
and thus I won the Luanians. I gave them their freedom,
and returned their weapons to them after they had
sworn loyalty to me and friendship and peace with Ja,
and I made the old fellow, who had had the good sense
to surrender, king of Luana, for both the old chief and
his only son had died in the battle.
When I sailed away from Luana she was included
among the kingdoms of the empire, whose boundaries
were thus pushed eastward several hundred miles.
Pellucidar |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Rig Veda: Victor
never vanquished who disposes all,
The migbty-voiced, the rider, unassailable, to Indra everconquering
speak your reverent prayer.
3 Still Victor, loved by mortals, ruler over men, o'erthrower,
warrior, he hath waxen as he would;
Host-gatherer, triumphant, honoured mid the folk. Indra's heroic
deeds
will I tell forth to all.
4 The strong who never yields, who slew the furious fiend,
the deep,
The Rig Veda |
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 First Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: their virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of
wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government
in the short space of four years.
My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and WELL upon this
whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time.
If there be an object to HURRY any of you in hot haste to a step
which you would never take DELIBERATELY, that object will be
frustrated by taking time; but no good object can be frustrated
by it. Such of you as are now dissatisfied, still have the
old Constitution unimpaired, and, on the sensitive point,
the laws of your own framing under it; while the new administration
|
