| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: granted this presently, and joined my Englishman with them: and we
concealed the man, and his wife and daughters, on board our ship,
till the sloop put out to go to sea; and then having put all their
goods on board some time before, we put them on board the sloop
after she was got out of the bay. Our seaman was mightily pleased
with this new partner; and their stocks, indeed, were much alike,
rich in tools, in preparations, and a farm - but nothing to begin
with, except as above: however, they carried over with them what
was worth all the rest, some materials for planting sugar-canes,
with some plants of canes, which he, I mean the Brazil planter,
understood very well.
Robinson Crusoe |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Complete Angler by Izaak Walton: undertake a harder task than Mr. Hales, a most valiant and excellent
fencer, who in a printed book called A Private School of Defence
undertook to teach that art or science, and was laughed at for his labour.
Not but that many useful things might be learned by that book, but he
was laughed at because that art was not to be taught by words, but
practice: and so must Angling. And note also, that in this Discourse I do
not undertake to say all that is known, or may be said of it, but I
undertake to acquaint the Reader with many things that are not usually
known to every Angler; and I shall leave gleanings and observations
enough to be made out of the experience of all that love and practice
this recreation, to which I shall encourage them. For Angling may be
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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 War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy: evidence to the contrary. Napoleon's historians themselves tell us
that from Smolensk onwards he wished to stop, knew the danger of his
extended position, and knew that the occupation of Moscow would not be
the end of the campaign, for he had seen at Smolensk the state in
which Russian towns were left to him, and had not received a single
reply to his repeated announcements of his wish to negotiate.
In giving and accepting battle at Borodino, Kutuzov acted
involuntarily and irrationally. But later on, to fit what had
occurred, the historians provided cunningly devised evidence of the
foresight and genius the generals who, of all the blind tools of
history were the most enslaved and involuntary.
War and Peace |
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 God The Invisible King by H. G. Wells: come. To it indeed much religion is already coming. Christian
thought struggles towards it, with the millstones of Syrian theology
and an outrageous mythology of incarnation and resurrection about
its neck. When at last our present bench of bishops join the early
fathers of the church in heaven there will be, I fear, a note of
reproach in their greeting of the ingenious person who saddled them
with OMNIPOTENS. Still more disastrous for them has been the virgin
birth, with the terrible fascination of its detail for unpoetic
minds. How rich is the literature of authoritative Christianity
with decisions upon the continuing virginity of Mary and the
virginity of Joseph--ideas that first arose in Arabia as a Moslem
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