| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Critias by Plato: the destruction of those who received the tradition, and the lapse of ages.
For when there were any survivors, as I have already said, they were men
who dwelt in the mountains; and they were ignorant of the art of writing,
and had heard only the names of the chiefs of the land, but very little
about their actions. The names they were willing enough to give to their
children; but the virtues and the laws of their predecessors, they knew
only by obscure traditions; and as they themselves and their children
lacked for many generations the necessaries of life, they directed their
attention to the supply of their wants, and of them they conversed, to the
neglect of events that had happened in times long past; for mythology and
the enquiry into antiquity are first introduced into cities when they begin
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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 Mayflower Compact: Generall Good of the Colonie; unto which we promise
all due Submission and Obedience.
In Witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names
at Cape Cod the eleventh of November, in the Raigne of our
Sovereigne Lord, King James of England, France, and Ireland,
the eighteenth, and of Scotland, the fiftie-fourth,
Anno. Domini, 1620.
Mr. John Carver Mr. Stephen Hopkins
Mr. William Bradford Digery Priest
Mr. Edward Winslow Thomas Williams
Mr. William Brewster Gilbert Winslow
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Oedipus Trilogy by Sophocles: How insolently thou dost flout the State?
TEIRESIAS
Well, it will come what will, though I be mute.
OEDIPUS
Since come it must, thy duty is to tell me.
TEIRESIAS
I have no more to say; storm as thou willst,
And give the rein to all thy pent-up rage.
OEDIPUS
Yea, I am wroth, and will not stint my words,
But speak my whole mind. Thou methinks thou art he,
Oedipus Trilogy |
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 The Village Rector by Honore de Balzac: was grateful to the soul. Gerard had reproduced on an eminence that
chalet in the valley of Sion above the road to Brieg which travellers
admire so much; here were to be the dairy and the cow-sheds of the
chateau. From its gallery the eye roved over the landscape created by
the engineer which the three lakes made worthy of comparison with the
beauties of Switzerland.
The day was beautiful. In the blue sky, not a cloud; on earth, all the
charming, graceful things the soil offers in the month of May. The
trees planted ten years earlier on the banks--weeping willows, osier,
alder, ash, the aspen of Holland, the poplars of Italy and Virginia,
hawthorns and roses, acacias, birches, all choice growths arranged as
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