| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: the house of Aegisthus and met their doom. And he knew me
straightway when he had drunk the dark blood, yea, and he
wept aloud, and shed big tears as he stretched forth his
hands in his longing to reach me. But it might not be, for
he had now no steadfast strength nor power at all in
moving, such as was aforetime in his supple limbs.
'At the sight of him I wept and was moved with compassion,
and uttering my voice, spake to him winged words: "Most
renowned son of Atreus, Agamemnon, king of men, say what
doom overcame thee of death that lays men at their length?
Did Poseidon smite thee in thy ships, raising the dolorous
The Odyssey |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Camille by Alexandre Dumas: heard.
Far be it from me to make out our heroine to be anything but what
she was. As long as she remained at Bagneres, the promise she had
made to the duke had not been hard to keep, and she had kept it;
but, once back in Paris, it seemed to her, accustomed to a life
of dissipation, of balls, of orgies, as if the solitude, only
interrupted by the duke's stated visits, would kill her with
boredom, and the hot breath of her old life came back across her
head and heart.
We must add that Marguerite had returned more beautiful than she
had ever been; she was but twenty, and her malady, sleeping but
Camille |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Philebus by Plato: makes the difference between the mere art of disputation and true
dialectic.
PROTARCHUS: I think that I partly understand you Socrates, but I should
like to have a clearer notion of what you are saying.
SOCRATES: I may illustrate my meaning by the letters of the alphabet,
Protarchus, which you were made to learn as a child.
PROTARCHUS: How do they afford an illustration?
SOCRATES: The sound which passes through the lips whether of an individual
or of all men is one and yet infinite.
PROTARCHUS: Very true.
SOCRATES: And yet not by knowing either that sound is one or that sound is
|
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 Master Key by L. Frank Baum: sleepily. "They either belong in this city or have come to capture it,
so I can tell better what to dance when I find out what the band plays."
The next moment he was sound asleep, sprawling upon his back in the
shade and slumbering as peacefully as an infant.
And while he lay motionless three men dropped in quick succession from
the top of the city wall and hid among the low bushes, crawling
noiselessly from one to another and so approaching, by degrees, the
little group of trees.
They were Turks, and had been sent by those in authority within the
city to climb the tallest tree of the group and discover if the enemy
was near. For Rob's conjecture had been correct, and the city of
The Master Key |
