| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Passionate Pilgrim by William Shakespeare: IX.
Fair was the morn when the fair queen of love,
* * * * * *
Paler for sorrow than her milk-white dove,
For Adon's sake, a youngster proud and wild;
Her stand she takes upon a steep-up hill:
Anon Adonis comes with horn and hounds;
She, silly queen, with more than love's good will,
Forbade the boy he should not pass those grounds:
'Once,' quoth she, 'did I see a fair sweet youth
Here in these brakes deep-wounded with a boar,
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: spend in that den. But the scheme met with no opposition on the part
of the other two; they swore they were ready for that, or for any
other mad thing, for anything in short but a surrender. And what was
more, they each insisted upon being the first man on deck, when the
time to make the rush should come. But to this their leader as
fiercely objected, reserving that priority for himself; particularly
as his two comrades would not yield, the one to the other, in the
matter; and both of them could not be first, for the ladder would but
admit one man at a time. And here, gentlemen, the foul play of these
miscreants must come out.
"Upon hearing the frantic project of their leader, each in his own
Moby Dick |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Anabasis by Xenophon: and was exiled from Athens. Sparta gave him land
and property in Scillus, where he lived for many
years before having to move once more, to settle
in Corinth. He died in 354 B.C.
The Anabasis is his story of the march to Persia
to aid Cyrus, who enlisted Greek help to try and
take the throne from Artaxerxes, and the ensuing
return of the Greeks, in which Xenophon played a
leading role. This occurred between 401 B.C. and
March 399 B.C.
PREPARER'S NOTE
Anabasis |
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 Essays of Francis Bacon by Francis Bacon: fearfulness, which in any business, doth spoil the
feathers, of round flying up to the mark. The sec-
ond, that it puzzleth and perplexeth the conceits
of many, that perhaps would otherwise co-operate
with him; and makes a man walk almost alone, to
his own ends. The third and greatest is, that it
depriveth a man of one of the most principal in-
struments for action; which is trust and belief.
The best composition and temperature, is to have
openness in fame and opinion; secrecy in habit;
dissimulation in seasonable use; and a power to
Essays of Francis Bacon |
