| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Anthem by Ayn Rand: had come from the thought of some one man,
each in his day down the ages, from the depth
of some one spirit, such spirit as existed
but for its own sake. Those men who survived
those eager to obey, eager to live for one
another, since they had nothing else to
vindicate them--those men could neither carry
on, nor preserve what they had received.
Thus did all thought, all science,
all wisdom perish on earth. Thus did men--
men with nothing to offer save their great number--
Anthem |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Songs of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: XIX - TO DR. HAKE (On receiving a Copy of Verses)
IN the beloved hour that ushers day,
In the pure dew, under the breaking grey,
One bird, ere yet the woodland quires awake,
With brief reveille summons all the brake:
Chirp, chirp, it goes; nor waits an answer long;
And that small signal fills the grove with song.
Thus on my pipe I breathed a strain or two;
It scarce was music, but 'twas all I knew.
It was not music, for I lacked the art,
Yet what but frozen music filled my heart?
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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 Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: the very arch of this blazing sky, appear to me so hopeless and so dark,
so impenetrable to human thought, so pitiless to human weakness.
`And, ever since, you have been with him, of course?' I said.
"On the contrary. It appears their intercourse had been very much
broken by various causes. He had, as he informed me proudly,
managed to nurse Kurtz through two illnesses (he alluded to it as you
would to some risky feat), but as a rule Kurtz wandered alone,
far in the depths of the forest. `Very often coming to this station,
I had to wait days and days before he would turn up,' he said.
`Ah, it was worth waiting for!--sometimes.' `What was
he doing? exploring or what?' I asked. `Oh, yes, of course';
Heart of Darkness |
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 Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates by Howard Pyle: his tyranny and his violence that nothing that happened to her
might seem sharp and keen, as it does to others of an ordinary
sort.
But this was only at first, for afterward her face began to grow
singularly clear, as with a white light, and she would sit quite
still, permitting Barnaby to gaze, I know not how long, into her
eyes, her face so transfigured and her lips smiling, and they, as
it were, neither of them breathing, but hearing, as in another
far-distant place, the outlandish jargon of the crew talking
together in the warm, bright sunlight, or the sound of creaking
block and tackle as they hauled upon the sheets.
Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates |
