| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: revered father of Athenian laws; and many others there are in many other
places, both among Hellenes and barbarians, who have given to the world
many noble works, and have been the parents of virtue of every kind; and
many temples have been raised in their honour for the sake of children such
as theirs; which were never raised in honour of any one, for the sake of
his mortal children.
'These are the lesser mysteries of love, into which even you, Socrates, may
enter; to the greater and more hidden ones which are the crown of these,
and to which, if you pursue them in a right spirit, they will lead, I know
not whether you will be able to attain. But I will do my utmost to inform
you, and do you follow if you can. For he who would proceed aright in this
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The War in the Air by H. G. Wells: factories and workshops and industrial resources.
And the German airships were barely in sight of the Atlantic
waters, the first Asiatic fleet was scarcely reported from Upper
Burmah, before the fantastic fabric of credit and finance that
had held the world together economically for a hundred years
strained and snapped. A tornado of realisation swept through
every stock exchange in the world; banks stopped payment,
business shrank and ceased, factories ran on for a day or so by a
sort of inertia, completing the orders of bankrupt and
extinguished customers, then stopped. The New York Bert
Smallways saw, for all its glare of light and traffic, was in the
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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 Aeneid by Virgil: For counsel to his father Faunus went,
And sought the shades renown'd for prophecy
Which near Albunea's sulph'rous fountain lie.
To these the Latian and the Sabine land
Fly, when distress'd, and thence relief demand.
The priest on skins of off'rings takes his ease,
And nightly visions in his slumber sees;
A swarm of thin aerial shapes appears,
And, flutt'ring round his temples, deafs his ears:
These he consults, the future fates to know,
From pow'rs above, and from the fiends below.
Aeneid |
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 Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: satisfied with our new acquisition."
"Don't you think her a little overpowering?" said des Lupeaulx with a
piqued air.
The women present all exchanged expressive glances; the rivalry
between the minister and his secretary amused them and instigated one
of those pretty little comedies which Parisian women play so well.
They excited and led on his Excellency and des Lupeaulx by a series of
comments on Madame Rabourdin: one thought her too studied in manner,
too eager to appear clever; another compared the graces of the middle
classes with the manners of high life, while des Lupeaulx defended his
pretended mistress as we all defend an enemy in society.
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