| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Twelve Stories and a Dream by H. G. Wells: over the files of the journals of the year 1907 with a quite incredulous
recognition of how swift and flaming the boom of those days could be.
The July papers know nothing of flying, see nothing in flying,
state by a most effective silence that men never would, could or
should fly. In August flying and Filmer and flying and parachutes
and aerial tactics and the Japanese Government and Filmer and again
flying, shouldered the war in Yunnan and the gold mines of
Upper Greenland off the leading page. And Banghurst had given
ten thousand pounds, and, further, Banghurst was giving five thousand
pounds, and Banghurst had devoted his well-known, magnificent
(but hitherto sterile) private laboratories and several acres of land
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from What is Man? by Mark Twain: Seven years followed, in which twenty-one fresh and widely
varying renderings were scored--none of them quite convincing.
But now, at last, came Rawlinson, the youngest of all the
scholars, with a translation which was immediately and
universally recognized as being the correct version, and his name
became famous in a day. So famous, indeed, that even the
children were familiar with it; and such a noise did the
achievement itself make that not even the noise of the monumental
political event of that same year--the flight from Elba--was able
to smother it to silence. Rawlinson's version reads as follows:
Therefore, walk not away from the wisdom of Epiphanes, but
What is Man? |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Persuasion by Jane Austen: the actions and designs of one part of the world from the notice
and curiosity of the other; consequence has its tax; I, John Shepherd,
might conceal any family-matters that I chose, for nobody would think it
worth their while to observe me; but Sir Walter Elliot has eyes upon him
which it may be very difficult to elude; and therefore, thus much
I venture upon, that it will not greatly surprise me if,
with all our caution, some rumour of the truth should get abroad;
in the supposition of which, as I was going to observe, since applications
will unquestionably follow, I should think any from our wealthy
naval commanders particularly worth attending to; and beg leave to add,
that two hours will bring me over at any time, to save you
Persuasion |
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 Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: chat have ever since been working upon Trim's and my uncle Toby's pattern.-
-I care not what Aristotle, or Pacuvius, or Bossu, or Ricaboni say--(though
I never read one of them)--there is not a greater difference between a
single-horse chair and madam Pompadour's vis-a-vis; than betwixt a single
amour, and an amour thus nobly doubled, and going upon all four, prancing
throughout a grand drama--Sir, a simple, single, silly affair of that kind-
-is quite lost in five acts--but that is neither here nor there.
After a series of attacks and repulses in a course of nine months on my
uncle Toby's quarter, a most minute account of every particular of which
shall be given in its proper place, my uncle Toby, honest man! found it
necessary to draw off his forces and raise the siege somewhat indignantly.
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