| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Cromwell by William Shakespeare: Your honoured arms is my true winding sheet.
Farewell, dear Bedford; my peace is made in heaven.
Thus falls great Cromwell a poor ell in length,
To rise to unmeasured height, winged with new strength,
The land of Worms, which dying men discover,
My soul is shrined with heaven's celestial cover.
[Exit Cromwell and the officers, and others.]
BEDFORD.
Well, farewell, Cromwell, the truest friend,
That ever Bedford shall possess again.--
Well, Lords, I fear, when this man is dead,
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon: [18] Lit. "to the enomotarch."
When the right moment for encamping has come, the king is responsible
for that, and has to point out the proper place. The despatch of
emissaries, however, whether to friends or to foes, is [not][19] the
king's affair. Petitioners in general wishing to transact anything
treat, in the first instance, with the king. If the case concerns some
point of justice, the king despatches the petitioner to the
Hellanodikai (who form the court-martial); if of money, to the
paymasters.[20] If the petitioner brings booty, he is sent off to the
Laphuropolai (or sellers of spoil). This being the mode of procedure,
no other duty is left to the king, whilst he is on active service,
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll: if his name were written all over his face.'
It might have been written a hundred times, easily, on that
enormous face. Humpty Dumpty was sitting with his legs crossed,
like a Turk, on the top of a high wall--such a narrow one that
Alice quite wondered how he could keep his balance--and, as his
eyes were steadily fixed in the opposite direction, and he didn't
take the least notice of her, she thought he must be a stuffed
figure after all.
`And how exactly like an egg he is!' she said aloud, standing
with her hands ready to catch him, for she was every moment
expecting him to fall.
Through the Looking-Glass |
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 Essays & Lectures by Oscar Wilde: Greek writer, as opposed to that which comes either [Greek text
which cannot be reproduced].
He has passed through the valley of faith and has caught a glimpse
of the sunlit heights of Reason; but like all those who, while
accepting the supernatural, yet attempt to apply the canons of
rationalism, he is essentially inconsistent. For the better
apprehension of the character of this historic sense in Herodotus
it will be necessary to examine at some length the various forms of
criticism in which it manifests itself.
Such fabulous stories as that of the Phoenix, of the goat-footed
men, of the headless beings with eyes in their breasts, of the men
|
