| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Wife, et al by Anton Chekhov: tears with his sleeve. She could not grasp it at once, but turned
cold all over and began slowly crossing herself.
"He is passing," he repeated in a shrill voice, and again he gave
a sob. "He is dying because he sacrificed himself. What a loss
for science!" he said bitterly. "Compare him with all of us. He
was a great man, an extraordinary man! What gifts! What hopes we
all had of him!" Korostelev went on, wringing his hands:
"Merciful God, he was a man of science; we shall never look on
his like again. Osip Dymov, what have you done -- aie, aie, my
God!"
Korostelev covered his face with both hands in despair, and shook
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: a brief while to consciousness, and saw a star or two overhead, and
the lace-like edge of the foliage against the sky. When I awoke
for the third time (Wednesday, September 25th), the world was
flooded with a blue light, the mother of the dawn. I saw the
leaves labouring in the wind and the ribbon of the road; and, on
turning my head, there was Modestine tied to a beech, and standing
half across the path in an attitude of inimitable patience. I
closed my eyes again, and set to thinking over the experience of
the night. I was surprised to find how easy and pleasant it had
been, even in this tempestuous weather. The stone which annoyed me
would not have been there, had I not been forced to camp blindfold
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Shadow out of Time by H. P. Lovecraft: sanely grasp, its buried bulk stood in all its essential contours,
the vast, dust-drifted floors scarce sprinkled with the litter
elsewhere so dominant.
The relatively easy walking from this
point onward went curiously to my head. All the frantic eagerness
hitherto frustrated by obstacles now took itself out in a kind
of febrile speed, and I literally raced along the low-roofed,
monstrously well-remembered aisles beyond the archway.
I was
past being astonished by the familiarity of what I saw. On every
hand the great hieroglyphed metal shelf-doors loomed monstrously;
Shadow out of Time |
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 Euthyphro by Plato: justice which attends to the gods, as there is the other part of justice
which attends to men.
SOCRATES: That is good, Euthyphro; yet still there is a little point about
which I should like to have further information, What is the meaning of
'attention'? For attention can hardly be used in the same sense when
applied to the gods as when applied to other things. For instance, horses
are said to require attention, and not every person is able to attend to
them, but only a person skilled in horsemanship. Is it not so?
EUTHYPHRO: Certainly.
SOCRATES: I should suppose that the art of horsemanship is the art of
attending to horses?
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