| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson: Lay filled with the painted men.
"Far have I been and much have I seen,
Both as a man and boy,
But never have I set forth a foot
On so perilous an employ."
It fell in the dusk of the night
When unco things betide,
That he was aware of a captain-man
Drew near to the waterside.
He was aware of his coming
Down in the gloaming alone;
Ballads |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Of The Nature of Things by Lucretius: And all they seek is known from what they've heard
And less from what they've thought. Nor is this folly
Greater to-day, nor greater soon to be,
Than' twas of old.
And therefore kings were slain,
And pristine majesty of golden thrones
And haughty sceptres lay o'erturned in dust;
And crowns, so splendid on the sovereign heads,
Soon bloody under the proletarian feet,
Groaned for their glories gone- for erst o'er-much
Dreaded, thereafter with more greedy zest
Of The Nature of Things |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Some Reminiscences by Joseph Conrad: many times, using the very same words. The grandfather honoured
me by a special and somewhat embarrassing predilection. Extremes
touch. He was the oldest member by a long way in that Company,
and I was, if I may say so, its temporarily adopted baby. He had
been a pilot longer than any man in the boat could remember;
thirty--forty years. He did not seem certain himself, but it
could be found out, he suggested, in the archives of the Pilot-
office. He had been pensioned off years before, but he went out
from force of habit; and, as my friend the patron of the Company
once confided to me in a whisper, "the old chap did no harm. He
was not in the way." They treated him with rough deference. One
Some Reminiscences |
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: wealth as was never before possessed by kings and potentates, and is not
likely ever to be again, and they were furnished with everything which they
needed, both in the city and country. For because of the greatness of
their empire many things were brought to them from foreign countries, and
the island itself provided most of what was required by them for the uses
of life. In the first place, they dug out of the earth whatever was to be
found there, solid as well as fusile, and that which is now only a name and
was then something more than a name, orichalcum, was dug out of the earth
in many parts of the island, being more precious in those days than
anything except gold. There was an abundance of wood for carpenter's work,
and sufficient maintenance for tame and wild animals. Moreover, there were
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