| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Critias by Plato: shield, and having a charioteer who stood behind the man-at-arms to guide
the two horses; also, he was bound to furnish two heavy-armed soldiers, two
archers, two slingers, three stone-shooters and three javelin-men, who were
light-armed, and four sailors to make up the complement of twelve hundred
ships. Such was the military order of the royal city--the order of the
other nine governments varied, and it would be wearisome to recount their
several differences.
As to offices and honours, the following was the arrangement from the
first. Each of the ten kings in his own division and in his own city had
the absolute control of the citizens, and, in most cases, of the laws,
punishing and slaying whomsoever he would. Now the order of precedence
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dream Life and Real Life by Olive Schreiner: and catch her; but if she waded in the water in the bed of the river they
would not be able to find her footmarks; and she would hide, there where
the rocks and the kopjes were.
So she stood up and walked towards the river. The water in the river was
low; just a line of silver in the broad bed of sand, here and there
broadening into a pool. She stepped into it, and bathed her feet in the
delicious cold water. Up and up the stream she walked, where it rattled
over the pebbles, and past where the farmhouse lay; and where the rocks
were large she leaped from one to the other. The night wind in her face
made her strong--she laughed. She had never felt such night wind before.
So the night smells to the wild bucks, because they are free! A free thing
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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 Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche: thee most, because thou attractest, but art too weak to draw unto thee."
The happiness of man is, "I will." The happiness of woman is, "He will."
"Lo! now hath the world become perfect!"--thus thinketh every woman when
she obeyeth with all her love.
Obey, must the woman, and find a depth for her surface. Surface, is
woman's soul, a mobile, stormy film on shallow water.
Man's soul, however, is deep, its current gusheth in subterranean caverns:
woman surmiseth its force, but comprehendeth it not.--
Then answered me the old woman: "Many fine things hath Zarathustra said,
especially for those who are young enough for them.
Strange! Zarathustra knoweth little about woman, and yet he is right about
Thus Spake Zarathustra |
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 Reef by Edith Wharton: "Didn't they YOU?...As if the gods were there all the
while, just behind them, pulling the strings?" Her hands
were pressed against the railing, her face shining and
darkening under the wing-beats of successive impressions.
Darrow smiled in enjoyment of her pleasure. After all, he
had felt all that, long ago; perhaps it was his own fault,
rather than that of the actors, that the poetry of the play
seemed to have evaporated...But no, he had been right in
judging the performance to be dull and stale: it was simply
his companion's inexperience, her lack of occasions to
compare and estimate, that made her think it brilliant.
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