| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Dream Life and Real Life by Olive Schreiner: room is warm."
"I wanted so to come and see you. You are the only person in the world who
could help me! I know you are so large, and generous, and kind to other
women!" She sat down. Tears stood in her large blue eyes: she was
pulling off her little gloves unconsciously.
"You know Mr.--" (she mentioned the name of a well-known writer): "I know
you meet him often in your work. I want you to do something for me!"
The woman on the hearth-rug looked down at her.
"I couldn't tell my father or my mother, or any one else; but I can tell
you, though I know so little of you. You know, last summer he came and
stayed with us a month. I saw a great deal of him. I don't know if he
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: when I was a boy, after a great many essays and miscarriages, made
both butter and cheese at last, also salt (though I found it partly
made to my hand by the heat of the sun upon some of the rocks of
the sea), and never wanted it afterwards. How mercifully can our
Creator treat His creatures, even in those conditions in which they
seemed to be overwhelmed in destruction! How can He sweeten the
bitterest providences, and give us cause to praise Him for dungeons
and prisons! What a table was here spread for me in the
wilderness, where I saw nothing at first but to perish for hunger!
CHAPTER XI - FINDS PRINT OF MAN'S FOOT ON THE SAND
IT would have made a Stoic smile to have seen me and my little
Robinson Crusoe |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Crito by Plato: into Thessaly and deprive them of Athenian citizenship? Is this the
benefit which you will confer upon them? Or are you under the impression
that they will be better cared for and educated here if you are still
alive, although absent from them; for your friends will take care of them?
Do you fancy that if you are an inhabitant of Thessaly they will take care
of them, and if you are an inhabitant of the other world that they will not
take care of them? Nay; but if they who call themselves friends are good
for anything, they will--to be sure they will.
'Listen, then, Socrates, to us who have brought you up. Think not of life
and children first, and of justice afterwards, but of justice first, that
you may be justified before the princes of the world below. For neither
|
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 People That Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs: rapidly, and presently I was forced to admit that I was through.
"It's no use, Ajor," I said, "I've come as far as I can. It may
be that if I sleep, I can go on again after," but I knew that
that was not true, and that the end was near. "Yes, sleep,"
said Ajor. "We will sleep together--forever."
She crept close to me as I lay on the hard floor and pillowed
her head upon my arm. With the little strength which remained
to me, I drew her up until our lips touched, and, then I
whispered: "Good-bye!" I must have lost consciousness almost
immediately, for I recall nothing more until I suddenly awoke
out of a troubled sleep, during which I dreamed that I was
The People That Time Forgot |
