| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ivanhoe by Walter Scott: ``What mean these fellows by their capricious
insolence?'' said the Templar to the Benedictine,
``and why did you prevent me from chastising it?''
``Marry, brother Brian,'' replied the Prior,
``touching the one of them, it were hard for me
to render a reason for a fool speaking according
to his folly; and the other churl is of that savage,
fierce, intractable race, some of whom, as I have
often told you, are still to be found among the descendants
of the conquered Saxons, and whose supreme
pleasure it is to testify, by all means in their
Ivanhoe |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo: There is not a month in which the cocoa does not produce a bunch of
nuts, from twenty to fifty. At first sprouts out a kind of seed or
capsula, of a shape not unlike the scabbard of a scimitar, which
they cut, and place a vessel under, to receive the liquor that drops
from it; this drink is called soro, and is clear, pleasant, and
nourishing. If it be boiled, it grows hard, and makes a kind of
sugar much valued in the Indies: distil this liquor and you have a
strong water, of which is made excellent vinegar. All these
different products are afforded before the nut is formed, and while
it is green it contains a delicious cooling water; with these nuts
they store their gelves, and it is the only provision of water which
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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 The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx: its bitter,
witty and incisive criticism, striking the bourgeoisie to the
very heart's
core; but always ludicrous in its effect, through total
incapacity to
comprehend the march of modern history.
The aristocracy, in order to rally the people to them, waved the
proletarian alms-bag in front for a banner. But the people, so
often as it joined them, saw on their hindquarters the old feudal
coats of arms, and deserted with loud and irreverent laughter.
One section of the French Legitimists and "Young England"
The Communist Manifesto |
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 Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: came and offered their help and assistance, and did, very friendly,
work for several days to restore their habitation and make
necessaries for them. And thus in a little time they were set upon
their legs again.
About two days after this they had the farther satisfaction of
seeing three of the savages' canoes come driving on shore, and, at
some distance from them, two drowned men, by which they had reason
to believe that they had met with a storm at sea, which had overset
some of them; for it had blown very hard the night after they went
off. However, as some might miscarry, so, on the other hand,
enough of them escaped to inform the rest, as well of what they had
Robinson Crusoe |
