| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: our muse and would be all the better, I shall only be laughed at by them.
Do you expect to shoot your bolt and escape, Aristophanes? Well, perhaps
if you are very careful and bear in mind that you will be called to
account, I may be induced to let you off.
Aristophanes professed to open another vein of discourse; he had a mind to
praise Love in another way, unlike that either of Pausanias or Eryximachus.
Mankind, he said, judging by their neglect of him, have never, as I think,
at all understood the power of Love. For if they had understood him they
would surely have built noble temples and altars, and offered solemn
sacrifices in his honour; but this is not done, and most certainly ought to
be done: since of all the gods he is the best friend of men, the helper
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Massimilla Doni by Honore de Balzac: children's faces, distorted, like those of the dying; of women covered
with dreadful wounds, torn and wailing; of men mangled and crushed by
the copper sides of crashing vessels. I begin to see Venice as she is,
shrouded in crape, stripped, robbed, destitute. Pale phantoms wander
through her streets!
"Already the Austrian soldiers are grinning over me, already my
visionary life is drifting into real life; whereas six months ago real
life was the bad dream, and the life of opium held love and bliss,
important affairs and political interests. Alas! To my grief, I see
the dawn over my tomb, where truth and falsehood mingle in a dubious
light, which is neither day nor darkness, but partakes of both."
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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 Pagan and Christian Creeds by Edward Carpenter: of time.
Long then before any Sun or Star gods could be called in,
the return of the Vegetation must have enthralled man's
attention, and filled him with hope and joy. Yet since
its return was somewhat variable and uncertain the question,
What could man do to assist that return? naturally
became a pressing one. It is now generally held that the
use of Magic--sympathetic magic--arose in this way.
Sympathetic magic seems to have been generated by a
belief that your own actions cause a similar response in
things and persons around you. Yet this belief did not
Pagan and Christian Creeds |
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 Contrast by Royall Tyler: let me see--there is Elnathan, Silas, and Barnabas,
Tabitha--no, no, she's a she--tarnation, now I have
it--there's Elnathan, Silas, Barnabas, Jonathan, that's
I--seven of us, six went into the wars, and I staid at
home to take care of mother. Colonel said that it was
a burning shame for the true blue Bunker Hill sons of
liberty, who had fought Governor Hutchinson, Lord
North, and the Devil, to have any hand in kicking up
a cursed dust against a government which we had,
every mother's son of us, a hand in making.
JESSAMY
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