| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey: that he did not want to take her away from Surprise Valley. He
resisted all thought of that. He had brought her to the most
beautiful and wildest place of the uplands; he had saved her,
nursed her back to strength, watched her bloom as one of the
valley lilies; he knew her life there to be pure and sweet--she
belonged to him, and he loved her. Still these were not all the
reasons why he did not want to take her away. Where could they
go? He feared the rustlers--he feared the riders--he feared the
Mormons. And if he should ever succeed in getting Bess safely
away from these immediate perils, he feared the sharp eyes of
women and their tongues, the big outside world with its problems
Riders of the Purple Sage |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Egmont by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe: every trophy that a paltry spirit erects for itself by base and surreptitious
arts. And thou !
If it be possible for a son to swerve from the manners of his father,
practise shame betimes, while thou art compelled to feel shame for him
whom thou wouldst fain revere with thy whole heart.
Ferdinand. I listen without interrupting thee! Thy reproaches fall like
blows upon a helmet. I feel the shock, but I am armed. They strike, they
wound me not; I am sensible only to the anguish that lacerates my heart.
Alas! Alas! Have I lived to witness such a scene? Am I sent hither to
behold a spectacle like this?
Egmont. Dost thou break out into lamentations? What moves, what
Egmont |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Shadow out of Time by H. P. Lovecraft: cold perspiration. I lunged for it at once, and regained it without
further noise - but a moment afterward the slipping of blocks
under my feet raised a sudden and unprecedented din.
The din
was my undoing. For, falsely or not, I thought I heard it answered
in a terrible way from spaces far behind me. I thought I heard
a shrill, whistling sound, like nothing else on earth, and beyond
any adequate verbal description. If so, what followed has a grim
irony - since, save for the panic of this thing, the second thing
might never have happened.
As it was, my frenzy was absolute
Shadow out of Time |
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 Gorgias by Plato: statesmen who did distinguish them?
CALLICLES: No, indeed, I cannot.
SOCRATES: Yet, surely, Callicles, if you look you will find such a one.
Suppose that we just calmly consider whether any of these was such as I
have described. Will not the good man, who says whatever he says with a
view to the best, speak with a reference to some standard and not at
random; just as all other artists, whether the painter, the builder, the
shipwright, or any other look all of them to their own work, and do not
select and apply at random what they apply, but strive to give a definite
form to it? The artist disposes all things in order, and compels the one
part to harmonize and accord with the other part, until he has constructed
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