| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain: long ago, rank weeds smothering the very doorsteps,
the chimney crumbled to ruin, the window-sashes
vacant, a corner of the roof caved in. The boys gazed
awhile, half expecting to see a blue light flit past a
window; then talking in a low tone, as befitted the time
and the circumstances, they struck far off to the right,
to give the haunted house a wide berth, and took their
way homeward through the woods that adorned the
rearward side of Cardiff Hill.
CHAPTER XXVI
ABOUT noon the next day the boys ar-
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Koran: Then which of your Lord's bounties will ye twain deny?
O assembly of ginns and mankind! if ye are able to pass
through the confines of heaven and earth
then pass through them!-ye cannot pass through
save by authority!
Then which of your Lord's bounties will ye twain deny?
There shall be sent against you a flash of fire,
and molten copper, and ye shall not be helped!
Then which of your Lord's bounties will ye twain deny?
And when the heaven is rent asunder and become rosy red
- (melting) like grease!
The Koran |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche: the undergoing only of average and COMMON experiences, must have
been the most potent of all the forces which have hitherto
operated upon mankind. The more similar, the more ordinary
people, have always had and are still having the advantage; the
more select, more refined, more unique, and difficultly
comprehensible, are liable to stand alone; they succumb to
accidents in their isolation, and seldom propagate themselves.
One must appeal to immense opposing forces, in order to thwart
this natural, all-too-natural PROGRESSUS IN SIMILE, the evolution
of man to the similar, the ordinary, the average, the gregarious-
-to the IGNOBLE!--
Beyond Good and Evil |
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 Dracula by Bram Stoker: "He come on moonlight rays as elemental dust, as again
Jonathan saw those sisters in the castle of Dracula.
He become so small, we ourselves saw Miss Lucy, ere she was
at peace, slip through a hairbreadth space at the tomb door.
He can, when once he find his way, come out from anything
or into anything, no matter how close it be bound or even fused
up with fire, solder you call it. He can see in the dark,
no small power this, in a world which is one half shut from
the light. Ah, but hear me through.
"He can do all these things, yet he is not free. Nay, he is even more
prisoner than the slave of the galley, than the madman in his cell.
Dracula |
