| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: And away in the still cloudier past, the threads that make me up
can be traced by fancy into the bosoms of thousands and millions of
ascendants: Picts who rallied round Macbeth and the old (and highly
preferable) system of descent by females, fleers from before the
legions of Agricola, marchers in Pannonian morasses, star-gazers on
Chaldaean plateaus; and, furthest of all, what face is this that
fancy can see peering through the disparted branches? What sleeper
in green tree-tops, what muncher of nuts, concludes my pedigree?
Probably arboreal in his habits. . . .
And I know not which is the more strange, that I should carry about
with me some fibres of my minister-grandfather; or that in him, as
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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 Second Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: "Once I heard that even the Protector of the Poor made a
mistake," said the Jackal viciously.
"True; but there my Fate helped me. It was before I had come to
my full growth--before the last famine but three (by the Right
and Left of Gunga, how full used the streams to be in those
days!). Yes, I was young and unthinking, and when the flood
came, who so pleased as I? A little made me very happy then.
The village was deep in flood, and I swam above the Ghaut and
went far inland, up to the rice-fields, and they were deep in
good mud. I remember also a pair of bracelets (glass they were,
and troubled me not a little) that I found that evening. Yes,
The Second Jungle Book |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair: fire-eater, the "pitchfork senator," as he was called, a man who
took off his coat when he talked to workingmen, and damned and
swore like a Hessian. This meeting they advertised extensively,
and the Socialists advertised it too--with the result that about
a thousand of them were on hand that evening. The "pitchfork
senator" stood their fusillade of questions for about an hour,
and then went home in disgust, and the balance of the meeting was
a strictly party affair. Jurgis, who had insisted upon coming,
had the time of his life that night; he danced about and waved
his arms in his excitement--and at the very climax he broke loose
from his friends, and got out into the aisle, and proceeded to
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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 King Lear by William Shakespeare: Remain this ample third of our fair kingdom,
No less in space, validity, and pleasure
Than that conferr'd on Goneril.- Now, our joy,
Although the last, not least; to whose young love
The vines of France and milk of Burgundy
Strive to be interest; what can you say to draw
A third more opulent than your sisters? Speak.
Cor. Nothing, my lord.
Lear. Nothing?
Cor. Nothing.
Lear. Nothing can come of nothing. Speak again.
King Lear |
