| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from To-morrow by Joseph Conrad: step inside your gate."
"Come in," she said.
He entered then the front garden of the Carvils.
His tall shadow strode with a swagger; she turned
her back on the window and waited, watching the
shape, of which the footfalls seemed the most mate-
rial part. The light fell on a tilted hat; a power-
ful shoulder, that seemed to cleave the darkness;
on a leg stepping out. He swung about and stood
still, facing the illuminated parlour window at her
back, turning his head from side to side, laughing
To-morrow |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Pagan and Christian Creeds by Edward Carpenter: of communal feast--not without reference (at any rate in
later times) to a supposed Lamb-god. Among the Ainos
in the North of Japan, as also among the Gilyaks in
Eastern Siberia, the Bear is the great food-animal, and
is worshipped as the supreme giver of health and strength.
There also a similar ritual of sacrifice occurs. A perfect
Bear is caught and caged. He is fed up and even
pampered to the day of his death. "Fish, brandy and
other delicacies are offered to him. Some of the people
prostrate themselves before him; his coming into a house
brings a blessing, and if he sniffs at the food that brings a
Pagan and Christian Creeds |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson: for the weather next day was simply bedlamite. It is not the place
one would have chosen for a day's rest; for it consists almost
entirely of fortifications. Within the ramparts, a few blocks of
houses, a long row of barracks, and a church, figure, with what
countenance they may, as the town. There seems to be no trade; and
a shopkeeper from whom I bought a sixpenny flint-and-steel, was so
much affected that he filled my pockets with spare flints into the
bargain. The only public buildings that had any interest for us
were the hotel and the CAFE. But we visited the church. There
lies Marshal Clarke. But as neither of us had ever heard of that
military hero, we bore the associations of the spot with fortitude.
|
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 Walden by Henry David Thoreau: finer and more abundant clothing, more numerous, incessant, and
hotter fires, and the like. When he has obtained those things which
are necessary to life, there is another alternative than to obtain
the superfluities; and that is, to adventure on life now, his
vacation from humbler toil having commenced. The soil, it appears,
is suited to the seed, for it has sent its radicle downward, and it
may now send its shoot upward also with confidence. Why has man
rooted himself thus firmly in the earth, but that he may rise in the
same proportion into the heavens above? -- for the nobler plants are
valued for the fruit they bear at last in the air and light, far
from the ground, and are not treated like the humbler esculents,
Walden |
