| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Caesar's Commentaries in Latin by Julius Caesar: circiter L pervenerunt. Ibi perpauci aut viribus confisi tranare
contenderunt aut lintribus inventis sibi salutem reppererunt. In his fuit
Ariovistus, qui naviculam deligatam ad ripam nactus ea profugit; reliquos
omnes consecuti equites nostri interfecerunt. Duae fuerunt Ariovisti
uxores, una Sueba natione, quam domo secum eduxerat, altera Norica, regis
Voccionis soror, quam in Gallia duxerat a fratre missam: utraque in ea
fuga periit; duae filiae: harum altera occisa, altera capta est. C.
Valerius Procillus, cum a custodibus in fuga trinis catenis vinctus
traheretur, in ipsum Caesarem hostes equitatu insequentem incidit. Quae
quidem res Caesari non minorem quam ipsa victoria voluptatem attulit, quod
hominem honestissimum provinciae Galliae, suum familiarem et hospitem,
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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 Complete Poems of Longfellow by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: "Lay aside your cloak, O Birch-tree!
Lay aside your white-skin wrapper,
For the Summer-time is coming,
And the sun is warm in heaven,
And you need no white-skin wrapper!"
Thus aloud cried Hiawatha
In the solitary forest,
By the rushing Taquamenaw,
When the birds were singing gayly,
In the Moon of Leaves were singing,
And the sun, from sleep awaking,
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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 Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: of foreign travel and strange lands and manners as on his first
excursion into England. The change from a hilly to a level country
strikes him with delighted wonder. Along the flat horizon there
arise the frequent venerable towers of churches. He sees at the
end of airy vistas the revolution of the windmill sails. He may go
where he pleases in the future; he may see Alps, and Pyramids, and
lions; but it will be hard to beat the pleasure of that moment.
There are, indeed, few merrier spectacles than that of many
windmills bickering together in a fresh breeze over a woody
country; their halting alacrity of movement, their pleasant
business, making bread all day with uncouth gesticulations, their
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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 Underdogs by Mariano Azuela: cows and a patch of land, see: I had everything I wanted.
Well, I suppose you know how we farmers make a habit
of going over to town every week to hear Mass and the
sermon and then to market to buy our onions and to-
matoes and in general everything they want us to buy at
the ranch. Then you pick up some friends and go to Prim-
itivo Lopez' saloon for a bit of a drink before dinner;
well, you sit there drinking and you've got to be sociable,
so you drink more than you should and the liquor goes
to your head and you laugh and you're damned happy
and if you feel like it, you sing and shout and kick up a
The Underdogs |
