| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Songs of Innocence and Experience by William Blake: The little boy lost in the lonely fen,
Led by the wandering light,
Began to cry, but God, ever nigh,
Appeared like his father, in white.
He kissed the child, and by the hand led,
And to his mother brought,
Who in sorrow pale, through the lonely dale,
Her little boy weeping sought.
LAUGHING SONG
When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy,
And the dimpling stream runs laughing by;
Songs of Innocence and Experience |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Time Machine by H. G. Wells: wretched aristocracy in decay. But this attitude of mind was
impossible. However great their intellectual degradation, the
Eloi had kept too much of the human form not to claim my
sympathy, and to make me perforce a sharer in their degradation
and their Fear.
`I had at that time very vague ideas as to the course I should
pursue. My first was to secure some safe place of refuge, and to
make myself such arms of metal or stone as I could contrive.
That necessity was immediate. In the next place, I hoped to
procure some means of fire, so that I should have the weapon of a
torch at hand, for nothing, I knew, would be more efficient
The Time Machine |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tales and Fantasies by Robert Louis Stevenson: obligingly accepted. At the restaurant he showed him what to
order, with surprising consequences in the bill. What he
made that night by his percentages it would be hard to
estimate. And all the while Dick smilingly consented,
understanding well that he was being done, but taking his
losses in the pursuit of character as a hunter sacrifices his
dogs. As for the Strange Things, the reader will be relieved
to hear that they were no stranger than might have been
expected, and he may find things quite as strange without the
expense of a Van Tromp for guide. Yet he was a guide of no
mean order, who made up for the poverty of what he had 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 Dust by Mr. And Mrs. Haldeman-Julius: likely to get it. There was no sense in harboring such notions.
They must be crushed. He would work harder, much harder, hard
enough to forget them. There was but one thing worth while--his
farm. He would develop it to its limits.
Accordingly, when little Rose returned to Sharon, he and his
Rag-weed soon settled themselves to the old formula of endless
toil, investing the profits in sound farm mortgages that were
beginning to tax the capacity of his huge tin box in the vault of
the First State Bank.
V
DUST BEGETS DUST
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