| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll: The Baker with care combed his whiskers and hair,
And shook the dust out of his coats.
The Boots and the Broker were sharpening a spade--
Each working the grindstone in turn:
But the Beaver went on making lace, and displayed
No interest in the concern:
Though the Barrister tried to appeal to its pride,
And vainly proceeded to cite
A number of cases, in which making laces
Had been proved an infringement of right.
The maker of Bonnets ferociously planned
The Hunting of the Snark |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Astoria by Washington Irving: completed. It was built of stone and clay, there being no
calcarcous stone in the neighborhood from which lime for mortar
could be procured. The schooner was also finished, and launched,
with the accustomed ceremony, on the second of October, and took
her station below the fort. She was named the Dolly, and was the
first American vessel launched on this coast.
On the 5th of October, in the evening, the little community at
Astoria was enlivened by the unexpected arrival of a detachment
from Mr. David Stuart's post on the Oakinagan. It consisted of
two of the clerks and two of the privates. They brought favorable
accounts of the new establishment, but reported that, as Mr.
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Contrast by Royall Tyler: Why should our thoughts to distant countries roam,
When each refinement may be found at home?
Who travels now to ape the rich or great,
To deck an equipage and roll in state;
To court the graces, or to dance with ease,
Or by hypocrisy to strive to please?
Our free-born ancestors such arts despis'd;
Genuine sincerity alone they pris'd;
Their minds, with honest emulation fir'd;
To solid good--not ornament--aspir'd;
Or, if ambition rous'd a bolder flame,
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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 Parmenides by Plato: others, has come into being a longer time than they have. And when equal
time is added to a longer and shorter, the relative difference between them
is diminished. In this way that which was older becomes younger, and that
which was younger becomes older, that is to say, younger and older than at
first; and they ever become and never have become, for then they would be.
Thus the one and others always are and are becoming and not becoming
younger and also older than one another. And one, partaking of time and
also partaking of becoming older and younger, admits of all time, present,
past, and future--was, is, shall be--was becoming, is becoming, will
become. And there is science of the one, and opinion and name and
expression, as is already implied in the fact of our inquiry.
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