| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft: the strong to oppress the weak, I appeal to my own sense of justice,
and declare that I will not live with the individual, who has
violated every moral obligation which binds man to man.
"I protest equally against any charge being brought to criminate
the man, whom I consider as my husband. I was six-and-twenty when
I left Mr. Venables' roof; if ever I am to be supposed to arrive
at an age to direct my own actions, I must by that time have arrived
at it.--I acted with deliberation.--Mr. Darnford found me a forlorn
and oppressed woman, and promised the protection women in the
present state of society want.--But the man who now claims me--was
he deprived of my society by this conduct? The question is an insult
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The People That Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs: threw me entirely off my guard, so cordial was the one and
respectful the other, and the result was that I went willingly,
telling Ajor that I would return presently. I had laid my arms
and ammunition aside as soon as we had taken over the hut, and
I left them with Ajor now, as I had noticed that aside from
their hunting-knives the men of Kro-lu bore no weapons about
the village streets. There was an atmosphere of peace and
security within that village that I had not hoped to experience
within Caspak, and after what I had passed through, it must have
cast a numbing spell over my faculties of judgment and reason.
I had eaten of the lotus-flower of safety; dangers no longer
The People That Time Forgot |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers by Jonathan Swift: with the only falsehood that ever was pretended to be in them;
and this in an affair at home, where I had so many opportunities
to be exact; and must have given such advantages against me to a
person of Mr. Partridge's wit and learning, who, if he could
possibly have raised one single objection more against the truth
of my prophecies, would hardly have spared me.
And here I must take occasion to reprove the above mention'd
writer of the relation of Mr. Partridge's death, in a letter to a
lord; who was pleased to tax me with a mistake of four whole
hours in my calculation of that event. I must confess, this
censure pronounced with an air of certainty, in a matter that so
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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 Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) by Dante Alighieri: Chang'd into sounds articulate like these;
Briefly ye shall be answer'd. When departs
The fierce soul from the body, by itself
Thence torn asunder, to the seventh gulf
By Minos doom'd, into the wood it falls,
No place assign'd, but wheresoever chance
Hurls it, there sprouting, as a grain of spelt,
It rises to a sapling, growing thence
A savage plant. The Harpies, on its leaves
Then feeding, cause both pain and for the pain
A vent to grief. We, as the rest, shall come
The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) |
