| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: Divine nature. He can rise no higher, and he needs no more. Platonists
had said--No, that is only virtue; and virtue is the means, not the end.
We want proof of having something above that; something more than any
man of the herd, any Christian slave, can perform; something above
nature; portents and wonders. So they set to work to perform wonders;
and succeeded, I suppose, more or less. For now one enters into a whole
fairyland of those very phenomena which are puzzling us so nowadays--
ecstasy, clairvoyance, insensibility to pain, cures produced by the
effect of what we now call mesmerism. They are all there, these modern
puzzles, in those old books of the long bygone seekers for wisdom. It
makes us love them, while it saddens us to see that their difficulties
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The United States Bill of Rights: the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
III
No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house,
without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war,
but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers,
and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated,
and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath
or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched,
and the persons or things to be seized.
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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 New Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson: In my father's quiet mansion soon to lay your burden by.
Bear a moment, heavy laden, weary hand and weeping eye.
Lo, the feet of your deliverer; lo, the hour of freedom here.
VARIANT FORM OF THE PRECEDING POEM
COME to me, all ye that labour; I will give your spirits rest;
Here apart in starry quiet I will give you rest.
Come to me, ye heavy laden, sin defiled and care opprest,
In your father's quiet mansions, soon to prove a welcome guest.
But an hour you bear your trial, sin and suffer, bleed and die;
But an hour you toil and combat here in day's inspiring eye.
See the feet of your deliverer; lo, the hour of freedom nigh.
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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 Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson: southwest corner of the Island of Mull, the hills of which (and
Ben More above them all, with a wisp of mist upon the top of it)
lay full upon the lar-board bow. Though it was no good point of
sailing for the Covenant, she tore through the seas at a great
rate, pitching and straining, and pursued by the westerly swell.
Altogether it was no such ill night to keep the seas in; and I
had begun to wonder what it was that sat so heavily upon the
captain, when the brig rising suddenly on the top of a high
swell, he pointed and cried to us to look. Away on the lee bow,
a thing like a fountain rose out of the moonlit sea, and
immediately after we heard a low sound of roaring.
Kidnapped |
