| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Children of the Night by Edwin Arlington Robinson: Woe for the wings of pride and the shafts of doom! --
And thou, the saddest wind
That ever blew from Crete,
Sing the fell tidings back to that thrice unhappy ship! --
Sing to the western flame,
Sing to the dying foam,
A dirge for the sundered years and a dirge for the years to be!
Better his end had been as the end of a cloudless day,
Bright, by the word of Zeus, with a golden star,
Wrought of a golden fame, and flung to the central sky,
To gleam on a stormless tomb for evermore: --
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Anthem by Ayn Rand: under the Palace of Corrective Detention.
This room has no windows and it is empty
save for an iron post. Two men stood by
the post, naked but for leather aprons and
leather hoods over their faces. Those who
had brought us departed, leaving us to the
two Judges who stood in a corner of the
room. The Judges were small, thin men,
grey and bent. They gave the signal to the
two strong hooded ones.
They tore the clothes from our body,
Anthem |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Several Works by Edgar Allan Poe: found none who put forth hand to seize him; so that, unimpeded, he
passed within a yard of the prince's person; and, while the vast
assembly, as if with one impulse, shrank from the centres of the
rooms to the walls, he made his way uninterruptedly, but with the
same solemn and measured step which had distinguished him from the
first, through the blue chamber to the purple--through the purple
to the green--through the green to the orange--through this again
to the white--and even thence to the violet, ere a decided movement
had been made to arrest him. It was then, however, that the Prince
Prospero, maddening with rage and the shame of his own momentary
cowardice, rushed hurriedly through the six chambers, while none
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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 The Land that Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs: I sat down in the sand and opened it, and in the long twilight
read the manuscript, neatly written and tightly folded, which was
its contents.
You have read the opening paragraph, and if you are an imaginative
idiot like myself, you will want to read the rest of it; so I shall
give it to you here, omitting quotation marks--which are difficult
of remembrance. In two minutes you will forget me.
My home is in Santa Monica. I am, or was, junior member of my
father's firm. We are ship-builders. Of recent years we have
specialized on submarines, which we have built for Germany,
England, France and the United States. I know a sub as a mother
The Land that Time Forgot |
