| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Vailima Prayers & Sabbath Morn by Robert Louis Stevenson: returns, return to us, our sun and comforter, and call us up with
morning faces and with morning hearts - eager to labour - eager to
be happy, if happiness shall be our portion - and if the day be
marked for sorrow, strong to endure it.
We thank Thee and praise Thee; and in the words of him to whom this
day is sacred, close our oblation.
FOR SELF-BLAME
LORD, enlighten us to see the beam that is in our own eye, and
blind us to the mote that is in our brother's. Let us feel our
offences with our hands, make them great and bright before us like
the sun, make us eat them and drink them for our diet. Blind us to
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Philebus by Plato: PROTARCHUS: What is it?
SOCRATES: Is there not an absurdity in arguing that there is nothing good
or noble in the body, or in anything else, but that good is in the soul
only, and that the only good of the soul is pleasure; and that courage or
temperance or understanding, or any other good of the soul, is not really a
good?--and is there not yet a further absurdity in our being compelled to
say that he who has a feeling of pain and not of pleasure is bad at the
time when he is suffering pain, even though he be the best of men; and
again, that he who has a feeling of pleasure, in so far as he is pleased at
the time when he is pleased, in that degree excels in virtue?
PROTARCHUS: Nothing, Socrates, can be more irrational than all this.
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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 Father Goriot by Honore de Balzac: deal with a score of varieties of savages--Illinois and Hurons,
who live on the proceed of their social hunting. You are a hunter
of millions; you set your snares; you use lures and nets; there
are many ways of hunting. Some hunt heiresses, others a legacy;
some fish for souls, yet others sell their clients, bound hand
and foot. Every one who comes back from the chase with his game-
bag well filled meets with a warm welcome in good society. In
justice to this hospitable part of the world, it must be said
that you have to do with the most easy and good-natured of great
cities. If the proud aristocracies of the rest of Europe refuse
admittance among their ranks to a disreputable millionaire, Paris
Father Goriot |
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 Richard III by William Shakespeare: LADY ANNE being the mourner, attended by TRESSEL and BERKELEY
ANNE. Set down, set down your honourable load-
If honour may be shrouded in a hearse;
Whilst I awhile obsequiously lament
Th' untimely fall of virtuous Lancaster.
Poor key-cold figure of a holy king!
Pale ashes of the house of Lancaster!
Thou bloodless remnant of that royal blood!
Be it lawful that I invocate thy ghost
To hear the lamentations of poor Anne,
Wife to thy Edward, to thy slaughtered son,
Richard III |
