| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Aeneid by Virgil: Iapis first perceiv'd the closing wound,
And first the footsteps of a god he found.
"Arms! arms!" he cries; "the sword and shield prepare,
And send the willing chief, renew'd, to war.
This is no mortal work, no cure of mine,
Nor art's effect, but done by hands divine.
Some god our general to the battle sends;
Some god preserves his life for greater ends."
The hero arms in haste; his hands infold
His thighs with cuishes of refulgent gold:
Inflam'd to fight, and rushing to the field,
Aeneid |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Anthem by Ayn Rand: We came upon it today, at sunrise.
For many days we had been crossing a chain
of mountains. The forest rose among cliffs,
and whenever we walked out upon a
barren stretch of rock we saw great peaks
before us in the west, and to the north of us,
and to the south, as far as our eyes could see.
The peaks were red and brown, with the green streaks
of forests as veins upon them, with blue mists as veils
over their heads. We had never heard of these mountains,
nor seen them marked on any map.
Anthem |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: are here considering.)
The exact material condition at which this point will be reached will vary,
not only with the race and the age, but with the individual. A Marcus
Aurelius in a palace of gold and marble was able to retain his simplicity
and virility as completely as though he had lived in a cow-herd's hut;
while on the other hand, it is quite possible for the wife of a savage
chief who has but four slaves to bring her her corn and milk and spread her
skins in the sun, to become almost as purely parasitic as the most
delicately pampered female of fashion in ancient Rome, or modern Paris,
London, or New York; while the exact amount of unearned material wealth
which will emasculate individuals in the same society, will vary exactly as
|
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 Moby Dick by Herman Melville: employed in the celebration of the Passion of our Lord; though in the
Vision of St. John, white robes are given to the redeemed, and the
four-and-twenty elders stand clothed in white before the great-white
throne, and the Holy One that sitteth there white like wool; yet for
all these accumulated associations, with whatever is sweet, and
honourable, and sublime, there yet lurks an elusive something in the
innermost idea of this hue, which strikes more of panic to the soul
than that redness which affrights in blood.
This elusive quality it is, which causes the thought of whiteness,
when divorced from more kindly associations, and coupled with any
object terrible in itself, to heighten that terror to the furthest
Moby Dick |
