| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Iliad by Homer: then carried off the armour of the son of Panthous with ease, had
not Phoebus Apollo been angry, and in the guise of Mentes chief
of the Cicons incited Hector to attack him. "Hector," said he,
"you are now going after the horses of the noble son of Aeacus,
but you will not take them; they cannot be kept in hand and
driven by mortal man, save only by Achilles, who is son to an
immortal mother. Meanwhile Menelaus son of Atreus has bestridden
the body of Patroclus and killed the noblest of the Trojans,
Euphorbus son of Panthous, so that he can fight no more."
The god then went back into the toil and turmoil, but the soul of
Hector was darkened with a cloud of grief; he looked along the
The Iliad |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Arrow of Gold by Joseph Conrad: a shipwreck as an unavoidable event sooner or later in my future.
Meantime the man thus distinguished in my eyes glanced quietly
about and never spoke unless addressed directly by one of the
ladies present. There were more than a dozen people in that
drawing-room, mostly women eating fine pastry and talking
passionately. It might have been a Carlist committee meeting of a
particularly fatuous character. Even my youth and inexperience
were aware of that. And I was by a long way the youngest person in
the room. That quiet Monsieur Mills intimidated me a little by his
age (I suppose he was thirty-five), his massive tranquillity, his
clear, watchful eyes. But the temptation was too great - and I
The Arrow of Gold |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: my gun, which I seldom failed, and very seldom failed also bringing
home something fit to eat.
NOV. 23. - My other work having now stood still, because of my
making these tools, when they were finished I went on, and working
every day, as my strength and time allowed, I spent eighteen days
entirely in widening and deepening my cave, that it might hold my
goods commodiously.
NOTE. - During all this time I worked to make this room or cave
spacious enough to accommodate me as a warehouse or magazine, a
kitchen, a dining-room, and a cellar. As for my lodging, I kept to
the tent; except that sometimes, in the wet season of the year, it
Robinson Crusoe |
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 Crito by Plato: you any trouble. Nor can I think that you are at all justified, Socrates,
in betraying your own life when you might be saved; in acting thus you are
playing into the hands of your enemies, who are hurrying on your
destruction. And further I should say that you are deserting your own
children; for you might bring them up and educate them; instead of which
you go away and leave them, and they will have to take their chance; and if
they do not meet with the usual fate of orphans, there will be small thanks
to you. No man should bring children into the world who is unwilling to
persevere to the end in their nurture and education. But you appear to be
choosing the easier part, not the better and manlier, which would have been
more becoming in one who professes to care for virtue in all his actions,
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