| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Rivers to the Sea by Sara Teasdale: All night thru.
Dear things, kind things,
That my old love said,
Ranged themselves reproachfully
Round my bed.
But I could not heed them,
For I seemed to see
The eyes of my new love
Fixed on me.
Old love, old love,
How can I be true?
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Statesman by Plato: mind; many cities have been shipwrecked, and some are like ships
foundering, because their pilots are absolutely ignorant of the science
which they profess.
Let us next ask, which of these untrue forms of government is the least
bad, and which of them is the worst? I said at the beginning, that each of
the three forms of government, royalty, aristocracy, and democracy, might
be divided into two, so that the whole number of them, including the best,
will be seven. Under monarchy we have already distinguished royalty and
tyranny; of oligarchy there were two kinds, aristocracy and plutocracy; and
democracy may also be divided, for there is a democracy which observes, and
a democracy which neglects, the laws. The government of one is the best
Statesman |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson: we lay in a heather bush on the hillside in Uam Var, within view
of a herd of deer, the happiest ten hours of sleep in a fine,
breathing sunshine and on bone-dry ground, that I have ever
tasted. That night we struck Allan Water, and followed it down;
and coming to the edge of the hills saw the whole Carse of
Stirling underfoot, as flat as a pancake, with the town and
castle on a hill in the midst of it, and the moon shining on the
Links of Forth.
"Now," said Alan, "I kenna if ye care, but ye're in your own land
again. We passed the Hieland Line in the first hour; and now if
we could but pass yon crooked water, we might cast our bonnets in
Kidnapped |
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 Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar by Edgar Rice Burroughs: To remove Mugambi's loin cloth without awakening him
would be impossible, and the only detachable things
were the knob-stick and the pouch, which had fallen
from the black's shoulder as he rolled in sleep.
Seizing these two articles, as better than nothing at
all, Chulk retreated with haste, and every indication
of nervous terror, to the safety of the tree from which
he had dropped, and, still haunted by that indefinable
terror which the close proximity of man awakened in his
breast, fled precipitately through the jungle. Aroused
by attack, or supported by the presence of another of
Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar |
