| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Reason Discourse by Rene Descartes: heart perhaps more than one or two hundred times in a day? And what more
need be adduced to explain nutrition, and the production of the different
humors of the body, beyond saying, that the force with which the blood, in
being rarefied, passes from the heart towards the extremities of the
arteries, causes certain of its parts to remain in the members at which
they arrive, and there occupy the place of some others expelled by them;
and that according to the situation, shape, or smallness of the pores with
which they meet, some rather than others flow into certain parts, in the
same way that some sieves are observed to act, which, by being variously
perforated, serve to separate different species of grain? And, in the last
place, what above all is here worthy of observation, is the generation of
Reason Discourse |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli: had those armies on his back, or if he had been in good health, he
would have overcome all difficulties. And it is seen that his
foundations were good, for the Romagna awaited him for more than a
month. In Rome, although but half alive, he remained secure; and
whilst the Baglioni, the Vitelli, and the Orsini might come to Rome,
they could not effect anything against him. If he could not have made
Pope him whom he wished, at least the one whom he did not wish would
not have been elected. But if he had been in sound health at the death
of Alexander,[*] everything would have been different to him. On the
day that Julius the Second[+] was elected, he told me that he had
thought of everything that might occur at the death of his father, and
The Prince |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Pericles by William Shakespeare: Further to question me of your king's departure:
His seal'd commission, left in trust with me,
Doth speak sufficiently he 's gone to travel.
THALIARD. [Aside.]
How! the king gone!
HELICANUS.
If further yet you will be satisfied,
Why, as it were unlicensed of your loves,
He would depart, I 'II give some light unto you.
Being at Antioch --
THALIARD. [Aside.]
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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 Human Drift by Jack London: times that of a middle-class parish in the West End. In the
United States, in the last fourteen years, a total of coal-miners,
greater than our entire standing army, has been killed and
injured. The United States Bureau of Labour states that during
the year 1908, there were between 30,000 and 35,000 deaths of
workers by accidents, while 200,000 more were injured. In fact,
the safest place for a working-man is in the army. And even if
that army be at the front, fighting in Cuba or South Africa, the
soldier in the ranks has a better chance for life than the
working-man at home.
And yet, despite this terrible roll of death, despite the enormous
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