| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Cromwell by William Shakespeare: Bandettoes again.
[Exit omnes.]
ACT III. SCENE II. A room in an hotel.
[Enter Bedford and his Host.]
BEDFORD.
Am I betrayed? was Bedford born to die
By such base slaves in such a place as this?
Have I escaped so many times in France,
So many battles have I over passed,
And made the French stir when they heard my name;
And am I now betrayed unto my death?
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Pivot of Civilization by Margaret Sanger: extraordinary breadth of outlook and the real scientific quality of
her mind, has now redressed the balance. She has lifted this question
from out of the warm atmosphere of troubled domesticity in which it
has hitherto been discussed, to its proper level of a predominantly
important human affair.
H.G. Wells
Easton Glebe,
Dunmow,
Essex., England
THE PIVOT OF CIVILIZATION
CHAPTER I: A New Truth Emerges
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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 A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: shore that extended as far as the eye could see, but where land began,
it was limited by the downs which separated it from the "Swamp," a
large meadow shaped like a hippodrome. When they went home that way,
Trouville, on the slope of a hill below, grew larger and larger as
they advanced, and, with all its houses of unequal height, seemed to
spread out before them in a sort of giddy confusion.
When the heat was too oppressive, they remained in their rooms. The
dazzling sunlight cast bars of light between the shutters. Not a sound
in the village, not a soul on the sidewalk. This silence intensified
the tranquility of everything. In the distance, the hammers of some
calkers pounded the hull of a ship, and the sultry breeze brought them
A Simple Soul |
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 Critias by Plato: establish my words? and what part of it can be truly called a remnant of
the land that then was? The whole country is only a long promontory
extending far into the sea away from the rest of the continent, while the
surrounding basin of the sea is everywhere deep in the neighbourhood of the
shore. Many great deluges have taken place during the nine thousand years,
for that is the number of years which have elapsed since the time of which
I am speaking; and during all this time and through so many changes, there
has never been any considerable accumulation of the soil coming down from
the mountains, as in other places, but the earth has fallen away all round
and sunk out of sight. The consequence is, that in comparison of what then
was, there are remaining only the bones of the wasted body, as they may be
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