| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: organs are parted by a wall, and appear as if they could never be
confounded. The mind is endued with faculties, habits, instincts, and a
personality or consciousness in which they are bound together. Over
against these are placed forms, colours, external bodies coming into
contact with our own body. We speak of a subject which is ourselves, of an
object which is all the rest. These are separable in thought, but united
in any act of sensation, reflection, or volition. As there are various
degrees in which the mind may enter into or be abstracted from the
operations of sense, so there are various points at which this separation
or union may be supposed to occur. And within the sphere of mind the
analogy of sense reappears; and we distinguish not only external objects,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin: been a change of temperature, which at about the same time
destroyed the inhabitants of tropical, temperate, and arctic
latitudes on both sides of the globe. In North America we
positively know from Mr. Lyell, that the large quadrupeds
lived subsequently to that period, when boulders were
brought into latitudes at which icebergs now never arrive:
from conclusive but indirect reasons we may feel sure, that
in the southern hemisphere the Macrauchenia, also, lived
long subsequently to the ice-transporting boulder-period. Did
man, after his first inroad into South America, destroy, as
has been suggested, the unwieldy Megatherium and the
The Voyage of the Beagle |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Astoria by Washington Irving: Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean is traversed in every direction.
The mountains and forests, from the Arctic Sea to the Gulf of
Mexico, are threaded through every maze, by the hunter. Every
river and tributary stream, from the Columbia to the mouth of the
Rio del Norte, and from the M'Kenzie to the Colorado of the West,
from their head springs to their junction, are searched and
trapped for beaver. Almost all the American furs, which do not
belong to the Hudson's Bay Company, find their way to New York,
and are either distributed thence for home consumption, or sent
to foreign markets.
The Hudson's Bay Company ship their furs from their factories of
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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 The Scarecrow of Oz by L. Frank Baum: "A cave," he answered. "Let's go in. P'r'aps we'll find
the Scarecrow there."
She was a little doubtful of that, but the cave
interested her, and so did it Cap'n Bill. There was just
space enough at the edge of the sheet of water for them
to crowd in behind it, but after that dangerous entrance
they found room enough to walk upright and after a time
they came to an opening in the wall of rock. Approaching
this opening, they gazed within it and found a series of
steps, cut so that they might easily descend into the
cavern.
The Scarecrow of Oz |
