| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Common Sense by Thomas Paine: but the truth is, we should be less so, because the timber of the country
is every day diminishing, and that, which will remain at last,
will be far off and difficult to procure.
Were the continent crowded with inhabitants, her sufferings under
the present circumstances would be intolerable. The more seaport towns
we had, the more should we have both to defend and to lose. Our present
numbers are so happily proportioned to our wants, that no man need be idle.
The diminution of trade affords an army, and the necessities of an army
create a new trade.
Debts we have none; and whatever we may contract on this account will
serve as a glorious memento of our virtue. Can we but leave posterity
Common Sense |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Songs of Innocence and Experience by William Blake: LONDON
I wander through each chartered street,
Near where the chartered Thames does flow,
A mark in every face I meet,
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.
In every cry of every man,
In every infant's cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forged manacles I hear:
How the chimney-sweeper's cry
Every blackening church appals,
Songs of Innocence and Experience |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Stamped upon the crusted snow-drifts,
Stamped upon the lakes and rivers,
Made the snow upon them harder,
Made the ice upon them thicker,
Challenged Shingebis, the diver,
To come forth and wrestle with him,
To come forth and wrestle naked
On the frozen fens and moorlands.
Forth went Shingebis, the diver,
Wrestled all night with the North-Wind,
Wrestled naked on the moorlands
|
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 Mysterious Island by Jules Verne: The musmons were very numerous in this part of the island. These fine
animals were as large as deer; their horns were stronger than those of the
ram, and their gray-colored fleece was mixed with long hair.
This hunting day was very fatiguing. Such going and coming, and running
and riding and shouting! Of a hundred musmons which had been surrounded,
more than two-thirds escaped, but at last, thirty of these animals and ten
wild goats were gradually driven back towards the corral, the open door of
which appearing to offer a means of escape, they rushed in and were
prisoners.
In short, the result was satisfactory, and the settlers had no reason to
complain. There was no doubt that the flock would prosper, and that at no
The Mysterious Island |
