| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from United States Declaration of Independence: to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun
with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the
most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy of the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas
to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of
their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has
endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers,
the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare,
is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress
United States Declaration of Independence |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tono Bungay by H. G. Wells: returned to the ship for another night of dreams. Next day for
all the morning I resisted the impulse to go to him, and played
nap with Pollack with my secret gnawing at me, and in the evening
started to go and was near benighted. I never told a soul of
them of this thing I had done.
Next day I went early, and he had gone, and there were human
footmarks and ugly stains round the muddy hole from which he had
been dragged.
I returned to the ship, disconcerted and perplexed. That day it
was the men came aft, with blistered hands and faces, and sullen
eyes. When they proclaimed, through Edwards, their spokesman,
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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 Golden Sayings of Epictetus by Epictetus: are; but not preferred to honour, nor are they portions of God.
But thou art a thing preferred to honour: thou art thyself a
fragment torn from God:--thou hast a portion of Him within
thyself. How is it then that thou dost not know thy high descent
--dost not know whence thou comest? When thou eatest, wilt thou
not remember who thou art that eatest and whom thou feedest? In
intercourse, in exercise, in discussion knowest thou not that it
is a God whom thou feedest, a God whom thou exercisest, a God
whom thou bearest about with thee, O miserable! and thou
perceivest it not. Thinkest thou that I speak of a God of silver
or gold, that is without thee? Nay, thou bearest Him within thee!
The Golden Sayings of Epictetus |
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 Cavalry General by Xenophon: p. 333.
[15] Where? Some think in a lost passage of the work (see Courier, p.
111, n. 1); or is the reference to ch. ii. above? and is the scene
of the {dokimasiai} Phaleron? There is no further refernece to {ta
Phaleroi}. Cf. S. 1, above. See Aristot. "Ath. Pol." 49 (now the
locus classicus on the subject), and Dr. Sandys ad loc. The scene
is represented on a patera from Orvieto, now in the Berlin Museum,
reproduced and fully described in "The Art of Horsemanship by
Xenophon," translated, with chapters on the Greek Riding-Horse,
and with notes, by Morris H. Morgan, p. 76.
On occasions when the display takes place in the hippodrome,[16] the
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