| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Othello by William Shakespeare: Des. I neu'r saw this before.
Sure, there's some wonder in this Handkerchiefe,
I am most vnhappy in the losse of it.
Aemil. 'Tis not a yeare or two shewes vs a man:
They are all but Stomackes, and we all but Food,
They eate vs hungerly, and when they are full
They belch vs.
Enter Iago, and Cassio.
Looke you, Cassio and my Husband
Iago. There is no other way: 'tis she must doo't:
And loe the happinesse: go, and importune her
Othello |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson: inhumanly mishandled; but Secundra, in the midst of threats and
cruelties, stuck to it with extraordinary loyalty, that he was
quite ignorant of his master's plans, which might indeed be true,
and of the manner of his escape, which was demonstrably false.
Nothing was therefore left to the conspirators but to rely entirely
on the skill of Mountain. The night had been frosty, the ground
quite hard; and the sun was no sooner up than a strong thaw set in.
It was Mountain's boast that few men could have followed that
trail, and still fewer (even of the native Indians) found it. The
Master had thus a long start before his pursuers had the scent, and
he must have travelled with surprising energy for a pedestrian so
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte by Karl Marx: the Paris proletariat answers with the June insurrection, the most
colossal event in the history of European civil wars. The bourgeois
republic won. On its side stood the aristocracy of finance, the
industrial bourgeoisie; the middle class; the small traders' class; the
army; the slums, organized as Guarde Mobile; the intellectual
celebrities, the parsons' class, and the rural population. On the side
of the Parisian proletariat stood none but itself. Over 3,000
insurgents were massacred, after the victory 15,000 were transported
without trial. With this defeat, the proletariat steps to the
background on the revolutionary stage. It always seeks to crowd
forward, so soon as the movement seems to acquire new impetus, but with
|
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 Land of Footprints by Stewart Edward White: went hunting that afternoon, up over the low cliffs, and we saw
several of a very lively little animal known as the Chandler's
reedbuck. This was not supposed to be a game country, and that
was all we did see. At these we shot several
times-disgracefully. In fact, for several days we could not
shoot at all, at any range, nor at anything. It was very sad, and
very aggravating. Afterward we found that this is an invariable
experience to the newcomer. The light is new, the air is
different, the sizes of the game are deceiving. Nobody can at
first hit anything. At the end of five days we suddenly began to
shoot our normal gait. Why, I do not know.
|
