| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Egmont by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe: brother! 'Tis a name that embraces many names. Receive, with a true
heart, the last fair token of the departing spirit --take this kiss.
Death unites all, Brackenburg--us too it will unite!
Brackenburg. Let me then die with thee! Share it! oh, share it! There is
enough to extinguish two lives.
Clara. Hold! Thou must live, thou canst live.--Support my Mother, who,
without thee, would be a prey to want. Be to her what I can no longer be,
live together, and weep for me. Weep for our fatherland, and for him who
could alone have upheld it. The present generation must still endure this
bitter woe; vengeance itself could not obliterate it. Poor souls, live on,
through this gap in time, which is time no longer. To-day the world
Egmont |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Herodias by Gustave Flaubert: who stood in the centre of the largest nave and prayed aloud, with
uplifted arms.
At sunrise the two men who had been sent on a mission by Iaokanann
some time before, returned to the castle, bringing the answer so long
awaited and hoped for.
They whispered the message to Phanuel, who received it with rapture.
Then he showed them the lugubrious object, still resting on the
charger amid the ruins of the feast. One of the men said:
"Be comforted! He has descended among the dead in order to announce
the coming of the Christ!"
And in that moment the Essene comprehended the words of Iaokanann: "In
Herodias |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tono Bungay by H. G. Wells: chief architect was a young man named Westminster, whose work he
had picked out in the architecture room of the Royal Academy on
account of a certain grandiose courage in it, but with him he
associated from time to time a number of fellow professionals,
stonemasons, sanitary engineers, painters, sculptors, scribes,
metal workers, wood carvers, furniture designers, ceramic
specialists, landscape gardeners, and the man who designs the
arrangement and ventilation of the various new houses in the
London Zoological Gardens. In addition he had his own ideas.
The thing occupied his mind at all times, but it held it
completely from Friday night to Monday morning. He would come
|
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 Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll: "The rest of my speech" (he explained to his men)
"You shall hear when I've leisure to speak it.
But the Snark is at hand, let me tell you again!
'Tis your glorious duty to seek it!
"To seek it with thimbles, to seek it with care;
To pursue it with forks and hope;
To threaten its life with a railway-share;
To charm it with smiles and soap!
"For the Snark's a peculiar creature, that won't
Be caught in a commonplace way.
Do all that you know, and try all that you don't:
The Hunting of the Snark |
