| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin: end of the island, the New Zealand species. In many places
I noticed several sorts of weeds, which, like the rats, I was
forced to own as countrymen. A leek has overrun whole
districts, and will prove very troublesome, but it was imported
as a favour by a French vessel. The common dock
is also widely disseminated, and will, I fear, for ever remain
a proof of the rascality of an Englishman, who sold the seeds
for those of the tobacco plant.
On returning from our pleasant walk to the house, I dined
with Mr. Williams; and then, a horse being lent me, I returned
to the Bay of Islands. I took leave of the missionaries
The Voyage of the Beagle |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare: The world is not thy friend, nor the worlds law:
The world affords no law to make thee rich.
Then be not poore, but breake it, and take this
App. My pouerty, but not my will consents
Rom. I pray thy pouerty, and not thy will
App. Put this in any liquid thing you will
And drinke it off, and if you had the strength
Of twenty men, it would dispatch you straight
Rom. There's thy Gold,
Worse poyson to mens soules,
Doing more murther in this loathsome world,
Romeo and Juliet |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: enormities, he dreaded lest the corruption of that faculty might
be worse than brutality itself. He seemed therefore confident,
that, instead of reason we were only possessed of some quality
fitted to increase our natural vices; as the reflection from a
troubled stream returns the image of an ill shapen body, not only
larger but more distorted."
He added, "that he had heard too much upon the subject of war,
both in this and some former discourses. There was another
point, which a little perplexed him at present. I had informed
him, that some of our crew left their country on account of being
ruined by law; that I had already explained the meaning of the
Gulliver's Travels |
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 Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: matter. In fact, on noticing that Tientietnikov went in absorbedly for
reading and for talking philosophy, the visitor said to himself,
"No--I had better begin at the other end," and proceeded first to feel
his way among the servants of the establishment. From them he learnt
several things, and, in particular, that the barin had been wont to go
and call upon a certain General in the neighbourhood, and that the
General possessed a daughter, and that she and Tientietnikov had had
an affair of some sort, but that the pair had subsequently parted, and
gone their several ways. For that matter, Chichikov himself had
noticed that Tientietnikov was in the habit of drawing heads of which
each representation exactly resembled the rest.
Dead Souls |
