| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon: Attica,[50] and the exercise of magistracies which take them into
regions beyond the frontier, they and their attendants have insensibly
acquired the art of navigation.[51] A man who is perpetually voyaging
is forced to handle the oar, he and his domestics alike, and to learn
the terms familiar in seamanship. Hence a stock of skilful mariners is
produced, bred upon a wide experience of voyaging and practice. They
have learnt their business, some in piloting a small craft, others a
merchant vessel, whilst others have been drafted off from these for
service on a ship-of-war. So that the majority of them are able to row
the moment they set foot on board a vessel, having been in a state of
preliminary practice all their lives.
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells: the heather.
The fear I felt was no rational fear, but a panic terror not
only of the Martians, but of the dusk and stillness all about
me. Such an extraordinary effect in unmanning me it had
that I ran weeping silently as a child might do. Once I had
turned, I did not dare to look back.
I remember I felt an extraordinary persuasion that I was
being played with, that presently, when I was upon the very
verge of safety, this mysterious death--as swift as the passage
of light--would leap after me from the pit about the cylinder
and strike me down.
War of the Worlds |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Miracle Mongers and Their Methods by Harry Houdini: sensibility or the surface of the skin, his
legs in oil, heated at 97 degrees of Reaumur (250
degrees of Fahrenheit) and with the same
oil, at the same degree of heat, he washed
his face and superior extremities. He
held, for the same space of time, and with
as little inconvenience, his legs in a
solution of muriate of soda, heated to 102 of
the same scale, (261 1/2 degrees Fahr.) He stood
on and rubbed the soles of his feet with a
bar of hot iron heated to a white heat; in
Miracle Mongers and Their Methods |
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 Within the Tides by Joseph Conrad: His eye was in constant motion as if it were trying to do the work
of the two; but when Byrne made inquiries as to the possibility of
hiring a mule, it became immovably fixed in the direction of the
door which was closely besieged by the curious. In front of them,
just within the threshold, the little man in the large cloak and
yellow hat had taken his stand. He was a diminutive person, a mere
homunculus, Byrne describes him, in a ridiculously mysterious, yet
assertive attitude, a corner of his cloak thrown cavalierly over
his left shoulder, muffling his chin and mouth; while the broad-
brimmed yellow hat hung on a corner of his square little head. He
stood there taking snuff, repeatedly.
Within the Tides |
