| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Dynamiter by Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Van De Grift Stevenson: fallacies? Chance, the blind Madonna of the Pagan, rules
this terrestrial bustle; and in Chance I place my sole
reliance. Chance has brought us three together; when we next
separate and go forth our several ways, Chance will
continually drag before our careless eyes a thousand eloquent
clues, not to this mystery only, but to the countless
mysteries by which we live surrounded. Then comes the part
of the man of the world, of the detective born and bred.
This clue, which the whole town beholds without
comprehension, swift as a cat, he leaps upon it, makes it
his, follows it with craft and passion, and from one trifling
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Oedipus Trilogy by Sophocles: Your sorrow touches each man severally,
Him and none other, but I grieve at once
Both for the general and myself and you.
Therefore ye rouse no sluggard from day-dreams.
Many, my children, are the tears I've wept,
And threaded many a maze of weary thought.
Thus pondering one clue of hope I caught,
And tracked it up; I have sent Menoeceus' son,
Creon, my consort's brother, to inquire
Of Pythian Phoebus at his Delphic shrine,
How I might save the State by act or word.
Oedipus Trilogy |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from To-morrow by Joseph Conrad: followed by a most paternal and complacent re-
covery.
"Don't alarm yourself, my dear," he said a lit-
tle cunningly: "the sea can't keep him. He does
not belong to it. None of us Hagberds ever did
belong to it. Look at me; I didn't get drowned.
Moreover, he isn't a sailor at all; and if he is not a
sailor he's bound to come back. There's nothing
to prevent him coming back. . . ."
His eyes began to wander.
"To-morrow."
To-morrow |
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 Hiero by Xenophon: pitiful? For, it is a certainty, the ordinary person may accept at
once each service rendered by the object of his love as a sign and
token of kindliness inspired by affection, since he knows such
ministry is free from all compulsion. Whilst to the tyrant, the
confidence that he is loved is quite foreclosed. On the contrary,[47]
we know for certain that service rendered through terror will
stimulate as far as possible the ministrations of affection. And it is
a fact, that plots and conspiracies against despotic rulers are
oftenest hatched by those who most of all pretend to love them.[48]
[43] "The 'innere Unterhaltung'"; the {oarismos}. Cf. Milton, "P. L.":
With thee conversing, I forget all time.
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