| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner: wrong? Could Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite "put her hand to the nail,
and her right hand to the workman's hammer?" and could the Spirit of the
Lord chant paeans over her, loud paeans, high paeans, set in the book of
the Lord, and no voice cry out it was a mean and dastardly sin to lie, and
kill the trusting in their sleep? Could the friend of God marry his own
sister, and be beloved, and the man who does it today goes to hell, to
hell? Was there nothing always right or always wrong?
Those leaves had dropped blood for him once: they had made his heart heavy
and cold; they had robbed his childhood of its gladness; now his fingers
moved over them caressingly.
"My father God knows, my father knows," he said; "we cannot understand; He
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Common Sense by Thomas Paine: For a ship of a 100 guns - 35,553
90 - - 29,886
80 - - 23,638
70 - - 17,795
60 - - 14,197
50 - - 10,606
40 - - 7,558
30 - - 5,846
20 - - 3,710
And from hence it is easy to sum up the value, or cost rather, of
the whole British navy, which in the year 1757, when it was
Common Sense |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: in the eyes of a Greek the height of human felicity; and with the
Greeks, beauty necessarily included strength. So ardently did
this gifted people admire corporeal perfection that they actually
worshipped it. According to Herodotos, a young Sicilian was
deified on account of his beauty, and after his death altars were
raised to him. The vast intellectual power of Plato and Sokrates
did not prevent them from sharing this universal enthusiasm.
Poets like Sophokles, and statesmen like Alexander, thought it
not beneath their dignity to engage publicly in gymnastic sports.
Their conceptions of divinity were framed in accordance with
these general habits. Though sometimes, as in the case of
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
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 Lost Continent by Edgar Rice Burroughs: craft which I expected to see emerging thus early in the day
for their labors. But even after we rounded Ram Head and
were well within the waters of the bay I saw no vessel.
Neither was there buoy nor light nor any other mark to show
larger ships the channel, and I wondered much at this.
The coast was densely overgrown, nor was any building or
sign of man apparent from the water. Up the bay and into
the River Tamar we motored through a solitude as unbroken as
that which rested upon the waters of the Channel. For all
we could see, there was no indication that man had ever set
his foot upon this silent coast.
Lost Continent |
