| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Pericles by William Shakespeare: Are arms to princes, and bring joys to subjects.
Her face was to mine eye beyond all wonder;
The rest -- hark in thine ear -- as black as incest:
Which by my knowledge found, the sinful father
Seem'd not to strike, but smooth: but thou know'st this,
'Tis time to fear when tyrants seem to kiss.
Which fear so grew in me, I hither fled,
Under the covering of a careful night,
Who seem'd my good protector; and, being here,
Bethought me what was past, what might succeed.
I knew him tyrannous; and tyrants' fears
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw: Schoolmasters of Genius
And now, if I have reduced the ghosts of my schoolmasters to
melancholy acquiescence in all this (which everybody who has been at
an ordinary school will recognize as true), I have still to meet the
much more sincere protests of the handful of people who have a natural
genius for "bringing up" children. I shall be asked with kindly scorn
whether I have heard of Froebel and Pestalozzi, whether I know the
work that is being done by Miss Mason and the Dottoressa Montessori
or, best of all as I think, the Eurythmics School of Jacques Dalcroze
at Hellerau near Dresden. Jacques Dalcroze, like Plato, believes in
saturating his pupils with music. They walk to music, play to music,
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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 Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin: muscles round the eyes, and to the coincident free secretion of tears,
when the abdominal muscles act with unusual force in a downward
direction on the intestinal canal.
[18] Mr. Hensleigh Wedgwood (Dict. of English Etymology,
1859, vol. i. p. 410) says, "the verb to weep comes from
Anglo-Saxon _wop_, the primary meaning of which is simply outcry."
Yawning commences with a deep inspiration, followed by a long
and forcible expiration; and at the same time almost all the muscles
of the body are strongly contracted, including those round the eyes.
During this act tears are often secreted, and I have seen them
even rolling down the cheeks.
Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals |
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 Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson:
Treasure Island |
