| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Macbeth by William Shakespeare: Without leaue-taking. I pray you,
Let not my Iealousies, be your Dishonors,
But mine owne Safeties: you may be rightly iust,
What euer I shall thinke
Macd. Bleed, bleed poore Country,
Great Tyrrany, lay thou thy basis sure,
For goodnesse dare not check thee: wear y thy wrongs,
The Title, is affear'd. Far thee well Lord,
I would not be the Villaine that thou think'st,
For the whole Space that's in the Tyrants Graspe,
And the rich East to boot
Macbeth |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Myths and Myth-Makers by John Fiske: up his life. In this Finnish legend we have one of the
thousand phases of the story of the "Giant who had no Heart in
his Body," but whose heart was concealed, for safe keeping, in
a duck's egg, or in a pigeon, carefully disposed in some
belfry at the world's end a million miles away, or encased in
a wellnigh infinite series of Chinese boxes.[168] Since, in
spite of all these precautions, the poor giant's heart
invariably came to grief, we need not wonder at the Karen
superstition that the soul is in danger when it quits the body
on its excursions, as exemplified in countless Indo-European
stories of the accidental killing of the weird mouse or pigeon
Myths and Myth-Makers |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Ten Years Later by Alexandre Dumas: donation that, during two days, had kept alive such tempests
in the mind of Mazarin.
"What did I tell you, my lord?" murmured in the alcove a
voice which passed away like a breath.
"Your majesty returns my donation!" cried Mazarin, so
disturbed by joy as to forget his character of a benefactor.
"Your majesty rejects the forty millions!" cried Anne of
Austria, so stupefied as to forget her character of an
afflicted wife, or queen.
"Yes, my lord cardinal; yes, madame," replied Louis XIV.,
tearing the parchment which Mazarin had not yet ventured to
Ten Years Later |
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 Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe: bread; 't was his _system_, sir. I used to talk to Tom. `Why,
Tom,' I used to say, `when your gals takes on and cry, what's the
use o' crackin on' em over the head, and knockin' on 'em round?
It's ridiculous,' says I, `and don't do no sort o' good. Why, I
don't see no harm in their cryin',' says I; `it's natur,' says I,
`and if natur can't blow off one way, it will another. Besides, Tom,'
says I, `it jest spiles your gals; they get sickly, and down
in the mouth; and sometimes they gets ugly,--particular yallow gals
do,--and it's the devil and all gettin' on 'em broke in. Now,' says I,
`why can't you kinder coax 'em up, and speak 'em fair? Depend on it,
Tom, a little humanity, thrown in along, goes a heap further than
Uncle Tom's Cabin |
