| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen: a few minutes he would hover indecisive, but lust always
prevailed, and Clarke ended by drawing up his chair, lighting a
candle, and sitting down before the bureau. Its pigeon-holes
and drawers teemed with documents on the most morbid subjects,
and in the well reposed a large manuscript volume, in which he
had painfully entered he gems of his collection. Clarke had a
fine contempt for published literature; the most ghostly story
ceased to interest him if it happened to be printed; his sole
pleasure was in the reading, compiling, and rearranging what he
called his "Memoirs to prove the Existence of the Devil," and
engaged in this pursuit the evening seemed to fly and the night
The Great God Pan |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: construction of harbours, whether they understand the business in hand, or
only think that they do. Whatever the city, in a word, does to another
city, or in the management of her own affairs, all happens by the counsel
of the orators.
ALCIBIADES: True.
SOCRATES: But now see what follows, if I can (make it clear to you).
(Some words appear to have dropped out here.) You would distinguish the
wise from the foolish?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: The many are foolish, the few wise?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly.
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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 Vendetta by Honore de Balzac: Nature; falseness was a thing unknown to her; she gave herself up
without reserve to her impressions; she acknowledged them, or, rather,
allowed them to be seen without the affectations of petty and
calculating coquetry, characteristic of Parisian girlhood. During this
day she sat more than once with her palette in one hand, her brushes
in another, without touching a color. With her eyes fastened on the
officer, and her lips slightly apart, she listened, in the attitude of
painting a stroke which was never painted. She was not surprised to
see such softness in the eyes of the young man, for she felt that her
own were soft in spite of her will to keep them stern and calm. After
periods like this she painted diligently, without raising her head,
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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 Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon: one of these applicants all he wants, the state could not do it, not
even if all the gold and silver in the world were the inducement
offered.
Here are some of the cases which have to be decided on. Some one fails
to fit out a ship: judgement must be given. Another puts up a building
on a piece of public land: again judgement must be given. Or, to take
another class of cases: adjudication has to be made between the
choragi for the Dionysia, the Thargelia, the Panathenaea, year after
year. [[7] And again in behalf of the gymnasiarchs a similar
adjudication for the Panathenaea, the Prometheia, and the Hephaestia,
also year after year.] Also as between the trierarchs, four hundred of
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