| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Idylls of the King by Alfred Tennyson: Stoopt, took, brake seal, and read it; this was all:
'Most noble lord, Sir Lancelot of the Lake,
I, sometime called the maid of Astolat,
Come, for you left me taking no farewell,
Hither, to take my last farewell of you.
I loved you, and my love had no return,
And therefore my true love has been my death.
And therefore to our Lady Guinevere,
And to all other ladies, I make moan:
Pray for my soul, and yield me burial.
Pray for my soul thou too, Sir Lancelot,
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: mate, man or woman as we call them,--being the sections of entire men or
women,--and clung to that. They were being destroyed, when Zeus in pity of
them invented a new plan: he turned the parts of generation round to the
front, for this had not been always their position, and they sowed the seed
no longer as hitherto like grasshoppers in the ground, but in one another;
and after the transposition the male generated in the female in order that
by the mutual embraces of man and woman they might breed, and the race
might continue; or if man came to man they might be satisfied, and rest,
and go their ways to the business of life: so ancient is the desire of one
another which is implanted in us, reuniting our original nature, making one
of two, and healing the state of man. Each of us when separated, having
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: through the Barbarians; there were two enormous, struggling bodies;
and the wings with slings and arrows beat them back upon the
phalangites. There was no cavalry to get rid of them, except two
hundred Numidians operating against the right squadron of the
Clinabarians. All the rest were hemmed in, and unable to extricate
themselves from the lines. The peril was imminent, and the need of
coming to some resolution urgent.
Spendius ordered attacks to be made simultaneously on both flanks of
the phalanx so as to pass clean through it. But the narrower ranks
glided below the longer ones and recovered their position, and the
phalanx turned upon the Barbarians as terrible in flank as it had just
Salammbo |
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 King Henry VI by William Shakespeare: For Gloster's dukedom is too ominous.
WARWICK.
Tut! that's a foolish observation;
Richard, be Duke of Gloster. Now to London,
To see these honours in possession.
[Exeunt.]
ACT III.
SCENE I. A Forest in the North of England.
[Enter two Keepers, with crossbows in their hands.]
1 KEEPER.
Under this thick-grown brake we'll shroud ourselves,
|
