| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from War and the Future by H. G. Wells: vans, through suburbs still more intensely khaki or horizon blue,
and so out upon the great straight poplar-edged road--to the
front. Sometimes one laces through spates of heavy traffic,
sometimes the dusty road is clear ahead, now we pass a vast
aviation camp, now a park of waiting field guns, now an
encampment of cavalry. One turns aside, and abruptly one is in
France--France as one knew it before the war, on a shady
secondary road, past a delightful chateau behind its iron gates,
past a beautiful church, and then suddenly we are in a village
street full of stately Indian soldiers.
It betrays no military secret to say that commonly the rare
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Some Reminiscences by Joseph Conrad: before midnight, at which hour, haunted by no ghosts of the past
and by no visions of the future, I walked down the quay of the
Vieux Port to join the pilot-boat of my friends. I knew where
she would be waiting for her crew, in the little bit of a canal
behind the Fort at the entrance of the harbour. The deserted
quays looked very white and dry in the moonlight and as if frost-
bound in the sharp air of that December night. A prowler or two
slunk by noiselessly; a custom-house guard, soldier-like, a sword
by his side, paced close under the bowsprits of the long row of
ships moored bows on opposite the long, slightly curved,
continuous flat wall of the tall houses that seemed to be one
Some Reminiscences |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare: 'Fie! lifeless picture, cold and senseless stone,
Well-painted idol, image dull and dead, 212
Statue contenting but the eye alone,
Thing like a man, but of no woman bred:
Thou art no man, though of a man's complexion,
For men will kiss even by their own direction.' 216
This said, impatience chokes her pleading tongue,
And swelling passion doth provoke a pause;
Red cheeks and fiery eyes blaze forth her wrong;
Being judge in love, she cannot right her cause: 220
And now she weeps, and now she fain would speak,
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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 Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum: "Nevertheless," said the fair Queen, nodding her golden head at the
Master Woodsman, "it would not be a vain guess that Ak has often
assisted these hapless mortals."
Ak smiled.
"Sometimes," he replied, "when they are very young--'children,' the
mortals call them--I have stopped to rescue them from misery. The men
and women I dare not interfere with; they must bear the burdens Nature
has imposed upon them. But the helpless infants, the innocent
children of men, have a right to be happy until they become full-grown
and able to bear the trials of humanity. So I feel I am justified in
assisting them. Not long ago--a year, maybe--I found four poor
The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus |
