| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: [I should have rebuked this trifling with language, if our
landlady's daughter had not asked me just then what I meant by
putting my wedding-ring on a tree.]
Why, measuring it with my thirty-foot tape, my dear, - said I, - I
have worn a tape almost out on the rough barks of our old New
England elms and other big trees. - Don't you want to hear me talk
trees a little now? That is one of my specialities.
[So they all agreed that they should like to hear me talk about
trees.]
I want you to understand, in the first place, that I have a most
intense, passionate fondness for trees in general, and have had
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Pocket Diary Found in the Snow by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: shrub bent their twigs under the white burden which the winter had
laid upon them. Ludwig Amster, who had walked this street for
several years, knew his path so well that he could take it
blindfolded. The darkness did not worry him, but he walked somewhat
more slowly than usual, for he knew that under the thin covering of
fresh-fallen snow there lay the ice of the night before. He walked
carefully, watching for the slippery places.
He had been walking about half an hour, perhaps, when he came to a
cross street. Here he noticed the tracks of a wagon, the trace
still quite fresh, as the slowly falling flakes did not yet cover it.
The tracks led out towards the north, out on to the hilly, open
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from On Revenues by Xenophon: plan were found feasible this public merchant navy would be a large
source of extra revenue.
[25] Reading, with Zurborg, {epi one te}.
IV
I come to a new topic. I am persuaded that the establishment of the
silver mines on a proper footing[1] would be followed by a large
increase in wealth apart from the other sources of revenue. And I
would like, for the benefit of those who may be ignorant, to point out
what the capacity of these mines really is. You will then be in a
position to decide how to turn them to better account. It is clear, I
presume, to every one that these mines have for a very long time been
|
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 Forged Coupon by Leo Tolstoy: wage-slavery.
Tolstoy gave his whole-hearted adhesion to
this doctrine, predicting a day of enlightenment
when men would no longer tolerate a form of
slavery which he considered as revolting as that
which had so recently been abolished. Some long
conversations with Henry George, while he was
on a visit to Yasnaya Polyana, gave additional
strength to Tolstoy's conviction that in these
theories lay the elements essential to the trans-
formation and rejuvenation of human nature, go-
The Forged Coupon |
