| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: I answered. "I was in this room when you entered.
You had better look to your eyesight."
He glared at me in mingled rage and relief.
"Come," he said. "Issus commands your presence."
He conducted me outside the prison, leaving Xodar behind.
There we found several other guards, and with them the
red Martian youth who occupied another cell upon Shador.
The journey I had taken to the Temple of Issus on the
preceding day was repeated. The guards kept the red boy
and myself separated, so that we had no opportunity to continue
the conversation that had been interrupted the previous night.
The Gods of Mars |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Menexenus by Plato: dishonour to his race, and that to such a one neither men nor Gods are
friendly, either while he is on the earth or after death in the world
below. Remember our words, then, and whatever is your aim let virtue be
the condition of the attainment of your aim, and know that without this all
possessions and pursuits are dishonourable and evil. For neither does
wealth bring honour to the owner, if he be a coward; of such a one the
wealth belongs to another, and not to himself. Nor does beauty and
strength of body, when dwelling in a base and cowardly man, appear comely,
but the reverse of comely, making the possessor more conspicuous, and
manifesting forth his cowardice. And all knowledge, when separated from
justice and virtue, is seen to be cunning and not wisdom; wherefore make
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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 The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne: time afterwards had Hester been tortured, though less vividly, by
the same illusion.
In the afternoon of a certain summer's day, after Pearl grew big
enough to run about, she amused herself with gathering handfuls
of wild flowers, and flinging them, one by one, at her mother's
bosom; dancing up and down like a little elf whenever she hit the
scarlet letter. Hester's first motion had been to cover her
bosom with her clasped hands. But whether from pride or
resignation, or a feeling that her penance might best be wrought
out by this unutterable pain, she resisted the impulse, and sat
The Scarlet Letter |
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 Passionate Pilgrim by William Shakespeare: As take the pain, but cannot pluck the pelf.
XV.
Lord, how mine eyes throw gazes to the east!
My heart doth charge the watch; the morning rise
Doth cite each moving sense from idle rest.
Not daring trust the office of mine eyes,
While Philomela sits and sings, I sit and mark,
And wish her lays were tuned like the lark;
For she doth welcome daylight with her ditty,
And drives away dark dismal-dreaming night:
The night so pack'd, I post unto my pretty;
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