| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Hamlet by William Shakespeare: to see a robustious Pery-wig-pated Fellow, teare a Passion
to tatters, to verie ragges, to split the eares of the
Groundlings: who (for the most part) are capeable of
nothing, but inexplicable dumbe shewes, & noise: I could
haue such a Fellow whipt for o're-doing Termagant: it
outHerod's Herod. Pray you auoid it
Player. I warrant your Honor
Ham. Be not too tame neyther: but let your owne
Discretion be your Tutor. Sute the Action to the Word,
the Word to the Action, with this speciall obseruance:
That you ore-stop not the modestie of Nature; for any
Hamlet |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James: each and every one of us IS the One that remains. . . . This is
the ultimatum. . . . As sure as being--whence is all our
care--so sure is content, beyond duplexity, antithesis, or
trouble, where I have triumphed in a solitude that God is not
above."[234]
[234] Benjamin Paul Blood: The Anaesthetic Revelation and the
Gist of Philosophy, Amsterdam, N. Y., 1874, pp. 35, 36. Mr.
Blood has made several attempts to adumbrate the anaesthetic
revelation, in pamphlets of rare literary distinction, privately
printed and distributed by himself at Amsterdam. Xenos Clark, a
philosopher, who died young at Amherst in the '80's, much
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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 Pagan and Christian Creeds by Edward Carpenter: with the Sun's course among them.
Of all the ancient divinities perhaps Hercules is the one
whose role as a Sungod is most generally admitted. The
helper of gods and men, a mighty Traveller, and invoked
everywhere as the Saviour, his labors for the good of the
world became ultimately defined and systematized as
twelve and corresponding in number to the signs of the
Zodiac. It is true that this systematization only took place
at a late period, probably in Alexandria; also that the
identification of some of the Labors with the actual
signs as we have them at present is not always clear. But
Pagan and Christian Creeds |
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 Tom Sawyer, Detective by Mark Twain: some fumble a button, then there's some that draws
a figure or a letter with their finger on their cheek,
or under their chin or on their under lip. That's MY way.
When I'm restless, or worried, or thinking hard, I draw
capital V's on my cheek or on my under lip or under my chin,
and never anything BUT capital V's--and half the time I
don't notice it and don't know I'm doing it."
That was odd. That is just what I do; only I make
an O. And I could see people nodding to one another,
same as they do when they mean "THAT's so."
"Now, then, I'll go on. That same Saturday--no, it
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