| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw: other people.
The Sin of Athanasius
It seems hopeless. Anarchists are tempted to preach a violent and
implacable resistance to all law as the only remedy; and the result of
that speedily is that people welcome any tyranny that will rescue them
from chaos. But there is really no need to choose between anarchy and
tyranny. A quite reasonable state of things is practicable if we
proceed on human assumptions and not on academic ones. If adults will
frankly give up their claim to know better than children what the
purposes of the Life Force are, and treat the child as an experiment
like themselves, and possibly a more successful one, and at the same
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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 Second Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: And the wives can hear their men come back.
Back from the edge of the floe!
RED DOG
For our white and our excellent nights---for the nights of
swift running.
Fair ranging, far seeing, good hunting, sure cunning!
For the smells of the dawning, untainted, ere dew has departed!
For the rush through the mist, and the quarry blind-started!
For the cry of our mates when the sambhur has wheeled and is
standing at bay,
For the risk and the riot of night!
The Second Jungle Book |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Caesar's Commentaries in Latin by Julius Caesar: evellere neque sinistra impedita satis commode pugnare poterant, multi ut
diu iactato bracchio praeoptarent scutum manu emittere et nudo corpore
pugnare. Tandem vulneribus defessi et pedem referre et, quod mons suberit
circiter mille passuum , eo se recipere coeperunt. Capto monte et
succedentibus nostris, Boi et Tulingi, qui hominum milibus circiter XV
agmen hostium claudebant et novissimis praesidio erant, ex itinere nostros
latere aperto adgressi circumvenire, et id conspicati Helvetii, qui
in montem sese receperant, rursus instare et proelium redintegrare
coeperunt. Romani [conversa] signa bipertito intulerunt: prima et
secunda acies, ut victis ac submotis resisteret, tertia, ut venientes
sustineret.
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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 Allan Quatermain by H. Rider Haggard: and beloved Queen, and lifted, amidst public rejoicings, to its
throne. I even went the length to exhort him in the future not
to be carried away by the pride and pomp of absolute power, but
always to strive to remember that he was first a Christian gentleman,
and next a public servant, called by Providence to a great and
almost unprecedented trust. These remarks, which he might fairly
have resented, he was so good as to receive with patience, and
even to thank me for making them.
It was immediately after this ceremony that I caused myself to
be moved to the house where I am now writing. It is a very pleasant
country seat, situated about two miles from the Frowning City,
Allan Quatermain |
