| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay: not offer to assist him to adjust the ghastly burden.
She crossed the isthmus, followed by Maskull. Their path lay through
sunshine and shadow. Branchspell was blazing in a cloudless sky, the
heat was insufferable - streams of sweat coursed down his face, and
the corpse seemed to grow heavier and heavier. Tydomin always walked
in front of him. His eyes were fastened in an unseeing stare on her
white, womanish calves; he looked neither to right nor left. His
features grew sullen. At the end of ten minutes he suddenly allowed
his burden to slip off his shoulders on to the ground, where it lay
sprawled every which way. He called out to Tydomin.
She quickly looked around.
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Crito by Plato: you never stirred out of her; the halt, the blind, the maimed, were not
more stationary in her than you were. And now you run away and forsake
your agreements. Not so, Socrates, if you will take our advice; do not
make yourself ridiculous by escaping out of the city.
'For just consider, if you transgress and err in this sort of way, what
good will you do either to yourself or to your friends? That your friends
will be driven into exile and deprived of citizenship, or will lose their
property, is tolerably certain; and you yourself, if you fly to one of the
neighbouring cities, as, for example, Thebes or Megara, both of which are
well governed, will come to them as an enemy, Socrates, and their
government will be against you, and all patriotic citizens will cast an
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Silas Marner by George Eliot: marriage, which was a blight on his life. It was an ugly story of
low passion, delusion, and waking from delusion, which needs not to
be dragged from the privacy of Godfrey's bitter memory. He had long
known that the delusion was partly due to a trap laid for him by
Dunstan, who saw in his brother's degrading marriage the means of
gratifying at once his jealous hate and his cupidity. And if
Godfrey could have felt himself simply a victim, the iron bit that
destiny had put into his mouth would have chafed him less
intolerably. If the curses he muttered half aloud when he was alone
had had no other object than Dunstan's diabolical cunning, he might
have shrunk less from the consequences of avowal. But he had
Silas Marner |
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 Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: won't mistake me for you some dark night?"
"There's not the least danger," said Rikki-tikki. "But Nag is
in the garden, and I know you don't go there."
"My cousin Chua, the rat, told me--" said Chuchundra, and
then he stopped.
"Told you what?"
"H'sh! Nag is everywhere, Rikki-tikki. You should have
talked to Chua in the garden."
"I didn't--so you must tell me. Quick, Chuchundra, or I'll
bite you!"
Chuchundra sat down and cried till the tears rolled off his
The Jungle Book |
