| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is
the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who
believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to
become greater than his nature will allow.
When I found so astonishing a power placed within my hands, I hesitated
a long time concerning the manner in which I should employ it.
Although I possessed the capacity of bestowing animation,
yet to prepare a frame for the reception of it, with all its
intricacies of fibres, muscles, and veins, still remained a
work of inconceivable difficulty and labour. I doubted at first
whether I should attempt the creation of a being like myself,
Frankenstein |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Othello by William Shakespeare: I won his Daughter
Bra. A Maiden, neuer bold:
Of Spirit so still, and quiet, that her Motion
Blush'd at her selfe, and she, in spight of Nature,
Of Yeares, of Country, Credite, euery thing
To fall in Loue, with what she fear'd to looke on;
It is a iudgement main'd, and most imperfect.
That will confesse Perfection so could erre
Against all rules of Nature, and must be driuen
To find out practises of cunning hell
Why this should be. I therefore vouch againe,
Othello |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: rapid means of intercommunication, widening and changing in every direction
the human horizon--all these produce a society, so complex and so rapidly
altering, that social co-ordination between all its parts is impossible;
and social unrest, and the strife of ideals of faiths, of institutions, and
consequent human suffering is inevitable.
If the ancient guns and agricultural implements which our fathers taught us
to use are valueless in the hands of their descendants, if the samplers our
mothers worked and the stockings they knitted are become superfluous
through the action of the modern loom, yet more are their social
institutions, faiths, and manners of life become daily and increasingly
unfitted to our use; and friction and suffering inevitable, especially for
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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 Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso: Do not your tender limbs to toil engage;
In calm streams, fishes; birds, in sunshine play,
Who followeth pleasure he is only sage,
So nature saith, yet gainst her sacred will
Why still rebel you, and why strive you still?
LXIII
" `O fools who youth possess, yet scorn the same,
A precious, but a short-abiding treasure,
Virtue itself is but an idle name,
Prized by the world 'bove reason all and measure,
And honor, glory, praise, renown and fame,
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