| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Anthem by Ayn Rand: Yet as we stand at night in the great hall,
removing our garments for sleep, we look
upon our brothers and we wonder. The heads
of our brothers are bowed. The eyes of our
brothers are dull, and never do they look
one another in the eyes. The shoulders
of our brothers are hunched, and their
muscles are drawn, as if their bodies were
shrinking and wished to shrink out of sight.
And a word steals into our mind, as we look
upon our brothers, and that word is fear.
Anthem |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Human Drift by Jack London: him is a future wherein it will be too cold for him to exist. He
cannot adjust himself to that future, because he cannot alter
universal law, because he cannot alter his own construction nor
the molecules that compose him.
It would be well to ponder these lines of Herbert Spencer's which
follow, and which embody, possibly, the wildest vision the
scientific mind has ever achieved:
"Motion as well as Matter being fixed in quantity, it would seem
that the change in the distribution of Matter which Motion
effects, coming to a limit in whichever direction it is carried,
the indestructible Motion thereupon necessitates a reverse
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates by Howard Pyle: harm done, I'll be bound. And how does your head feel by now, my
young master?"
To this Barnaby made no reply, but, what with wonder and the
dizziness of his head, seated himself at the table over against
the speaker, who pushed a bottle of rum toward him, together with
a glass from the swinging shelf above.
He watched Barnaby fill his glass, and so soon as he had done so
began immediately by saying: "I do suppose you think you were
treated mightily ill to be so handled last night. Well, so you
were treated ill enough-- though who hit you that crack upon the
head I know no more than a child unborn. Well, I am sorry for the
Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates |
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 Margret Howth: A Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis: rejoice with the rest. I said it was a trading city: so it was,
but the very trade to-day had a jolly Christmas face on; the
surly old banks and pawnbrokers' shops had grown ashamed of their
doings, and shut their doors, and covered their windows
with frosty trees, and cathedrals, and castles; the shops opened
their inmost hearts; some child's angel had touched them, and
they flushed out into a magic splendour of Christmas trees, and
lights, and toys; Santa Claus might have made his head-quarters
in any one of them. As for children, you stumbled over them at
every step, quite weighed down with the heaviness of their joy,
and the money burning their pockets; the acrid old brokers and
Margret Howth: A Story of To-day |
