| 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: which were in a certain sense explanations of the order of
Nature, and a kind of "popular science."
The Equator, as everyone knows, is an imaginary line
or circle girdling the Earth half-way between the North
and South poles. If you imagine a transparent Earth with
a light at its very centre, and also imagine the SHADOW
of this equatorial line to be thrown on the vast concave
of the Sky, this shadow would in astronomical parlance
coincide with the Equator of the Sky--forming an imaginary
circle half-way between the North and South celestial poles.
The Equator, then, may be pictured as cutting across the
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 Moby Dick by Herman Melville: succeeded in gaining the forecastle deck, where, hastily slewing
about three or four large casks in a line with the windlass, these
sea-Parisians entrenched themselves behind the barricade.
"'Come out of that, ye pirates!' roared the captain, now menacing
them with a pistol in each hand, just brought to him by the steward.
'Come out of that, ye cut-throats!'
"Steelkilt leaped on the barricade, and striding up and down there,
defied the worst the pistols could do; but gave the captain to
understand distinctly, that his (Steelkilt's) death would be the
signal for a murderous mutiny on the part of all hands. Fearing in
his heart lest this might prove but too true, the captain a little
Moby Dick |
