| 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: impression that the darkness around him, on all four sides, was
grinning.... As soon as that happened, he understood that he was
wholly surrounded by Crystalman's world, and that Muspel consisted of
himself and the stone tower on which he was sitting..
Fire flashed in his heart.... Millions upon millions of grotesque,
vulgar, ridiculous, sweetened individuals - once Spirit - were
calling out from their degradation and agony for salvation from
Muspel.... To answer that cry there was only himself ... and Krag
waiting below ... and Surtur - But where was Surtur?
The truth forced itself on him in all its cold, brutal reality.
Muspel was no all-powerful Universe, tolerating from pure
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson: As, when in days of summer, through open windows, the fly
Swift as a breeze and loud as a trump goes by,
But when frosts in the field have pinched the wintering mouse,
Blindly noses and buzzes and hums in the firelit house:
So the sound of the feast gallantly trampled at night,
So it staggered and drooped, and droned in the morning light.
IV. THE RAID
IT chanced that as Rua sat in the valley of silent falls,
He heard a calling of doves from high on the cliffy walls.
Fire had fashioned of yore, and time had broken, the rocks;
There were rooting crannies for trees and nesting-places for flocks;
Ballads |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Vision Splendid by William MacLeod Raine: humanity that disease and poverty could not extinguish.
One night James Farnum dropped in to borrow some money from his
cousin and for ten minutes listened to such talk as he had never
heard before. His mind moved among a group of orthodox and
accepted ideas. A new one he always viewed as if it were a
dynamite bomb timed to go off shortly. He was not only suspicious
of it; he was afraid of it.
James was, it happened, in evening dress. He took gingerly the
chair his cousin offered him between the hectic Marchant and a
little Polish Jew.
The air was blue with the smoke from cheap tobacco. More than one
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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 United States Bill of Rights: VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a
speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district
wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have
been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature
and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him;
to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor,
and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.
VII
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed
twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved,
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