| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar by Edgar Rice Burroughs: to him; but in the language of the great apes.
The Belgian shook his head.
"I do not understand that language," he said in French.
Without effort, and apparently without realizing that
he made the change, Tarzan repeated his question in
French. Werper suddenly came to a full realization of
the magnitude of the injury of which Tarzan was a
victim. The man had lost his memory--no longer could
he recollect past events. The Belgian was upon the
point of enlightening him, when it suddenly occurred to
him that by keeping Tarzan in ignorance, for a time at
Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Othello by William Shakespeare: Shee's gone. I am abus'd, and my releefe
Must be to loath her. Oh Curse of Marriage!
That we can call these delicate Creatures ours,
And not their Appetites? I had rather be a Toad,
And liue vpon the vapour of a Dungeon,
Then keepe a corner in the thing I loue
For others vses. Yet 'tis the plague to Great-ones,
Prerogatiu'd are they lesse then the Base,
'Tis destiny vnshunnable, like death:
Euen then, this forked plague is Fated to vs,
When we do quicken. Looke where she comes:
Othello |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Faraday as a Discoverer by John Tyndall: were unequal to the task of urging the spark across the shortest
measurable space of air. Nor, indeed, could the action of the
battery, the different metals of which were in contact with each
other, decide the point in question. Still, as regards the identity
of electricities from various sources, it was at that day of great
importance to determine whether or not the voltaic current could
jump, as a spark, across an interval before contact. Faraday's
friend, Mr. Gassiot, solved this problem. He erected a battery of
4000 cells, and with it urged a stream of sparks from terminal to
terminal, when separated from each other by a measurable space of air.
The memoir on the 'Electricity of the Voltaic Pile,' published in
|
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 A Lover's Complaint by William Shakespeare: The thing we have not, mastering what not strives?
Paling the place which did no form receive,
Playing patient sports in unconstrained gyves:
She that her fame so to herself contrives,
The scars of battle 'scapeth by the flight,
And makes her absence valiant, not her might.
'O pardon me, in that my boast is true:
The accident which brought me to her eye,
Upon the moment did her force subdue,
And now she would the caged cloister fly:
Religious love put out religion's eye:
|
