| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Aesop's Fables by Aesop: the summer night. So pleased was he with it that the next night
he set a trap for it and captured it. "Now that I have caught
thee," he cried, "thou shalt always sing to me."
"We Nightingales never sing in a cage." said the bird.
"Then I'll eat thee." said the Labourer. "I have always heard
say that a nightingale on toast is dainty morsel."
"Nay, kill me not," said the Nightingale; "but let me free,
and I'll tell thee three things far better worth than my poor
body." The Labourer let him loose, and he flew up to a branch of
a tree and said: "Never believe a captive's promise; that's one
thing. Then again: Keep what you have. And third piece of advice
Aesop's Fables |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Return of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: have you on your feet again before you know it."
The Englishman shook his head weakly. "It's too late,"
he whispered. "But it's just as well. I'd rather die."
"Where is Monsieur Thuran?" asked the girl.
"He left me after the fever got bad. He is a devil.
When I begged for the water that I was too weak to get he drank
before me, threw the rest out, and laughed in my face."
At the thought of it the man was suddenly animated by a spark
of vitality. He raised himself upon one elbow. "Yes," he
almost shouted; "I will live. I will live long enough to find
and kill that beast!" But the brief effort left him weaker than
The Return of Tarzan |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen: home, in the cold lands; and if the learned man now came there and told his
story, they would say that he was imitating it, and that he had no need to do.
He would, therefore, not talk about it at all; and that was wisely thought.
*Peter Schlemihl, the shadowless man.
In the evening he went out again on the balcony. He had placed the light
directly behind him, for he knew that the shadow would always have its master
for a screen, but he could not entice it. He made himself little; he made
himself great: but no shadow came again. He said, "Hem! hem!" but it was of no
use.
It was vexatious; but in the warm lands everything grows so quickly; and after
the lapse of eight days he observed, to his great joy, that a new shadow came
Fairy Tales |
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 Critias by Plato: losing the water which flows off the bare earth into the sea, but, having
an abundant supply in all places, and receiving it into herself and
treasuring it up in the close clay soil, it let off into the hollows the
streams which it absorbed from the heights, providing everywhere abundant
fountains and rivers, of which there may still be observed sacred memorials
in places where fountains once existed; and this proves the truth of what I
am saying.
Such was the natural state of the country, which was cultivated, as we may
well believe, by true husbandmen, who made husbandry their business, and
were lovers of honour, and of a noble nature, and had a soil the best in
the world, and abundance of water, and in the heaven above an excellently
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