| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Heritage of the Desert by Zane Grey: the top of the stone wall above the corral, where they had good view of a
considerable part of the plateau.
The eastern rise of ground, a sage and juniper slope, was in plain sight.
Hare saw a white flash; then Silvermane broke out of the cedars into the
sage. One of the brothers raced him half the length of the slope, and
then the other coming out headed him off down toward the forest. Soon
the pounding of hoofs sounded through the trees nearer and nearer.
Silvermane came out straight ahead on the open level. He was running
easily.
"He hasn't opened up yet," said August.
Hare watched the stallion with sheer fascination; He ran seemingly
The Heritage of the Desert |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: enemies? How long would they endure?
So some random light directing them with its pale footfall upon stair
and mat, from some uncovered star, or wandering ship, or the Lighthouse
even, with its pale footfall upon stair and mat, the little airs
mounted the staircase and nosed round bedroom doors. But here surely,
they must cease. Whatever else may perish and disappear, what lies here
is steadfast. Here one might say to those sliding lights, those
fumbling airs that breathe and bend over the bed itself, here you can
neither touch nor destroy. Upon which, wearily, ghostlily, as if they
had feather-light fingers and the light persistency of feathers, they
would look, once, on the shut eyes, and the loosely clasping fingers,
To the Lighthouse |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: vertical objects cast no shadows.
He had before suggested, as is supposed, to Ptolemy Euergetes, to make
him the two great copper armillae, or circles for determining the
equinox, which stood for centuries in "that which is called the Square
Porch"--probably somewhere in the Museum. By these he had calculated
the obliquity of the ecliptic, closely enough to serve for a thousand
years after. That was one work done. But what had the Syene shadows to
do with that? Syene must be under that ecliptic. On the edge of it.
In short, just under the tropic. Now he had ascertained exactly the
latitude of one place on the earth's surface. He had his known point
from whence to start on a world-journey, and he would use it; he would
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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 Theaetetus by Plato: soon returns, the neglected organs come back into use, and the river of
speech finds out the dried-up channel.
e. 'Consciousness' is the most treacherous word which is employed in the
study of the mind, for it is used in many senses, and has rarely, if ever,
been minutely analyzed. Like memory, it accompanies all mental operations,
but not always continuously, and it exists in various degrees. It may be
imperceptible or hardly perceptible: it may be the living sense that our
thoughts, actions, sufferings, are our own. It is a kind of attention
which we pay to ourselves, and is intermittent rather than continuous. Its
sphere has been exaggerated. It is sometimes said to assure us of our
freedom; but this is an illusion: as there may be a real freedom without
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