| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Spirit of the Border by Zane Grey: such was his intention. The hunter hurried to the eastern end of the ridge for
no other reason than apparently that course was the one the savage had the
least reason to take. He advanced hurriedly because every moment was precious.
Not a crushed blade of grass, a brushed leaf, an overturned pebble nor a
snapped twig did he find. He saw that he was getting near to the side of the
ridge where the Delaware's trail had abruptly ended. Ah! what was there? A
twisted bit of fern, with the drops of dew brushed off. Bending beside the
fern, Wetzel examined the grass; it was not crushed. A small plant with
triangular leaves of dark green, lay under the fern. Breaking off one of these
leaves, he exposed its lower side to the light. The fine, silvery hair of fuzz
that grew upon the leaf had been crushed. Wetzel know that an Indian could
The Spirit of the Border |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: convoyed neither by gods nor men, but after a perilous voyage of
twenty days upon a raft he is to reach fertile Scheria, {50} the
land of the Phaeacians, who are near of kin to the gods, and
will honour him as though he were one of ourselves. They will
send him in a ship to his own country, and will give him more
bronze and gold and raiment than he would have brought back from
Troy, if he had had all his prize money and had got home without
disaster. This is how we have settled that he shall return to
his country and his friends."
Thus he spoke, and Mercury, guide and guardian, slayer of Argus,
did as he was told. Forthwith he bound on his glittering golden
The Odyssey |
| 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: words, its existence is no longer compatible with society.
The essential condition for the existence, and for the sway of
the bourgeois class, is the formation and augmentation of
capital; the condition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour
rests exclusively on competition between the laborers. The
advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the
bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to
competition, by their revolutionary combination, due to
association. The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts
from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie
produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie,
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 The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne: him some day!"
"And they will no longer find him," said Herbert.
"But then," added Pencroft, "they must return, and--"
"My friends," said Cyrus Harding, "do not let us discuss this question
until we know more about it. I believe that the unhappy man has suffered,
that he has severely expiated his faults, whatever they may have been, and
that the wish to unburden himself stifles him. Do not let us press him to
tell us his history! He will tell it to us doubtless, and when we know it,
we shall see what course it will be best to follow. He alone besides can
tell us, if he has more than a hope, a certainty, of returning some day to
his country, but I doubt it!"
The Mysterious Island |
