| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Youth by Joseph Conrad: branch stirred along the shore, and the brown roofs of
hidden houses peeped through the green foliage, through
the big leaves that hung shining and still like leaves
forged of heavy metal. This was the East of the ancient
navigators, so old, so mysterious, resplendent and
somber, living and unchanged, full of danger and prom-
ise. And these were the men. I sat up suddenly. A
wave of movement passed through the crowd from end
to end, passed along the heads, swayed the bodies, ran
along the jetty like a ripple on the water, like a breath
of wind on a field--and all was still again. I see it now
Youth |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson: How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!
Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
River and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside--
Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown--
Up in the air I go flying again,
A Child's Garden of Verses |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Apology by Xenophon: being more liberal, or more upright, or more temperate than myself."
And when once more on hearing these words the judges gave vent, as was
only natural, to a fiercer murmur of dissent, Socrates once again
spoke: "Yet, sirs, they were still greater words which the god spake
in oracle concerning Lycurgus,[26] the great lawgiver of Lacedaemon,
than those concerning me. It is said that as he entered the temple the
god addressed him with the words: 'I am considering whether to call
thee god or man.' Me he likened not indeed to a god, but in
excellence[27] preferred me far beyond other men."
[25] L. Dindorf cf. Athen. v. 218 E; Hermesianax ap. Athen. xiii. 599
A; Liban. vol. iii. pp. 34, 35; Plat. "Apol." 21 A; Paus. i. 22.
The Apology |
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 Several Works by Edgar Allan Poe: was ghastly in the extreme, and produced so wild a look upon the
countenances of those who entered, that there were few of the
company bold enough to set foot within its precincts at all.
It was in this apartment, also, that there stood against the
western wall, a gigantic clock of ebony. Its pendulum swung to and
fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang; and when the minute-hand
made the circuit of the face, and the hour was to be stricken,
there came from the brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was
clear and loud and deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar
a note and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour, the musicians
of the orchestra were constrained to pause, momentarily, in their
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