| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) by Dante Alighieri: In heav'n doth second light, came after them
Four animals, each crown'd with verdurous leaf.
With six wings each was plum'd, the plumage full
Of eyes, and th' eyes of Argus would be such,
Were they endued with life. Reader, more rhymes
Will not waste in shadowing forth their form:
For other need no straitens, that in this
I may not give my bounty room. But read
Ezekiel; for he paints them, from the north
How he beheld them come by Chebar's flood,
In whirlwind, cloud and fire; and even such
The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Margret Howth: A Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis: understanding that the purchase-money was a wedding dowry; even
between Herne and himself it never was openly put into words. If
he did not marry Miss Herne, the mill was her father's; that of
course must be spoken of, arranged to-morrow. If he took it,
then? if he married her? Holmes had been poor, was miserably
poor yet, with the position and habits of a man, of refinement.
God knows it was not to gratify those tastes that he clutched at
this money. All the slow years of work trailed up before him,
that were gone,--of hard, wearing work for daily bread, when his
brain had been starving for knowledge, and his soul dulled,
debased with sordid trading. Was this to be always? Were these
Margret Howth: A Story of To-day |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from War and the Future by H. G. Wells: oldest monuments of Egypt and Assyria. The true superman comes
not as the tremendous personal entry of a star, but in the less
dramatic form of a general increase of goodwill and skill and
common sense. A species rises not by thrusting up peaks but by
the brimming up as a flood does. The coming of the superman
means not an epidemic of personages but the disappearance of the
Personage in the universal ascent. That is the point overlooked
by the megalomaniac school of Nietzsche and Shaw.
And it is the peculiarity of this war, it is the most reassuring
evidence that a great increase in general ability and critical
ability has been going on throughout the last century, that no
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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 Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: Her lamp goeth not out by night,
She layeth her hands to the distaff,
And her hands hold the spindle.
She spreadeth out her hand to the poor:
Yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy,
She is not afraid of the snow for her household,
For all her household are clothed with scarlet.
She maketh herself carpets of tapestry;
Her clothing is fine and purple.
Her husband is known in the gates,
When he sitteth among the elders of the land,
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