| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Apology by Xenophon: clearly signifies to me what I ought do do? Why, what else do those
who make use of the cries of birds or utterences of men draw their
conclusions from if not from voices? Who will deny that the thunder
has a voice and is a very mighty omen;[22] and the priestess on her
tripod at Pytho,[23] does not she also proclaim by voice the messages
from the god? The god, at any rate, has foreknowledge, and premonishes
those whom he will of what is about to be. That is a thing which all
the world believes and asserts even as I do. Only, when they describe
these premonitions under the name of birds and utterances, tokens[24]
and soothsayers, I speak of a divinity, and in using that designation
I claim to speak at once more exactly and more reverentially than they
The Apology |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Jungle Tales of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: tree but a yard or two ahead of the pursuing demon.
Like a cat the heavy anthropoid scampered up the bole
of his sanctuary. Numa's talons missed him by little
more than inches.
For a moment the lion paused beneath the tree, glaring up
at the ape and roaring until the earth trembled, then he
turned back again toward his kill, and as he did so,
his tail shot once more to rigid erectness and he
charged back even more ferociously than he had come,
for what he saw was the naked man-thing running toward
the farther trees with the bloody carcass of his prey
The Jungle Tales of Tarzan |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Euthydemus by Plato: And do you please?
Yes, he said.
And you will admit that the same is the same, and the other other; for
surely the other is not the same; I should imagine that even a child will
hardly deny the other to be other. But I think, Dionysodorus, that you
must have intentionally missed the last question; for in general you and
your brother seem to me to be good workmen in your own department, and to
do the dialectician's business excellently well.
What, said he, is the business of a good workman? tell me, in the first
place, whose business is hammering?
The smith's.
|
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 War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy: one of the most instructive phenomena in history.
All historians agree that the external activity of states and
nations in their conflicts with one another is expressed in wars,
and that as a direct result of greater or less success in war the
political strength of states and nations increases or decreases.
Strange as may be the historical account of how some king or
emperor, having quarreled with another, collects an army, fights his
enemy's army, gains a victory by killing three, five, or ten
thousand men, and subjugates a kingdom and an entire nation of several
millions, all the facts of history (as far as we know it) confirm
the truth of the statement that the greater or lesser success of one
War and Peace |
