| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Bucolics by Virgil: To mangle?
DAMOETAS
Well, then, shall we try our skill
Each against each in turn? Lest you be loth,
I pledge this heifer; every day she comes
Twice to the milking-pail, and feeds withal
Two young ones at her udder: say you now
What you will stake upon the match with me.
MENALCAS
Naught from the flock I'll venture, for at home
I have a father and a step-dame harsh,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain: soared steadily up again, the minute I took off the lid:
"Then Sir Marhaus turned his horse and rode toward
Gawaine with his spear. And when Sir Gawaine saw
that, he dressed his shield, and they aventred their
spears, and they came together with all the might of
their horses, that either knight smote other so hard in
the midst of their shields, but Sir Gawaine's spear
brake --"
"I knew it would."
-- "but Sir Marhaus's spear held; and therewith Sir
Gawaine and his horse rushed down to the earth --"
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen: At length the carriage stopped. They were in the midst of the court-yard of a
robber's castle. It was full of cracks from top to bottom; and out of the
openings magpies and rooks were flying; and the great bull-dogs, each of which
looked as if he could swallow a man, jumped up, but they did not bark, for
that was forbidden.
In the midst of the large, old, smoking hall burnt a great fire on the stone
floor. The smoke disappeared under the stones, and had to seek its own egress.
In an immense caldron soup was boiling; and rabbits and hares were being
roasted on a spit.
"You shall sleep with me to-night, with all my animals," said the little
robber maiden. They had something to eat and drink; and then went into a
Fairy Tales |
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 Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: Tientsin and started on their tour of inspection.
This commission was splendidly entertained wherever it went,
given every possible opportunity to examine the constitutions of
the countries through which it passed, and on its return to
Peking the report of the trip was published in one hundred and
twenty volumes, the most important item of which was that a
constitution, modelled after that of Japan, should be given to
China at as early a date as possible.
The leader of this expedition, His Excellency the Viceroy Tuan
Fang, is one of the greatest, if not the greatest living Manchu
statesman. Like Yuan Shih-kai, during the Boxer uprising, he
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