| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Dracula by Bram Stoker: world of old, that such things must be, and in such way?
This poor mother, all unknowing, and all for the best as she think,
does such thing as lose her daughter body and soul, and we
must not tell her, we must not even warn her, or she die,
then both die. Oh, how we are beset! How are all the powers
of the devils against us!"
Suddenly he jumped to his feet. "Come," he said."come, we must see and act.
Devils or no devils, or all the devils at once, it matters not.
We must fight him all the same." He went to the hall door for his bag,
and together we went up to Lucy's room.
Once again I drew up the blind, whilst Van Helsing went towards the bed.
Dracula |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum: of his fellow-creatures.
"Which means that I must plow the earth and plant corn," he reflected;
"so that when winter comes I shall have garnered food in plenty."
But, as he stood in the grassy Valley, he saw that to turn up the
earth in furrows would be to destroy hundreds of pretty, helpless
flowers, as well as thousands of the tender blades of grass. And this
he could not bear to do.
Therefore he stretched out his arms and uttered a peculiar whistle he
had learned in the Forest, afterward crying:
"Ryls of the Field Flowers--come to me!"
Instantly a dozen of the queer little Ryls were squatting upon the
The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: think that they know and do really know; and what they do not know, and
fancy that they know, when they do not. No other person will be able to do
this. And this is wisdom and temperance and self-knowledge--for a man to
know what he knows, and what he does not know. That is your meaning?
Yes, he said.
Now then, I said, making an offering of the third or last argument to Zeus
the Saviour, let us begin again, and ask, in the first place, whether it is
or is not possible for a person to know that he knows and does not know
what he knows and does not know; and in the second place, whether, if
perfectly possible, such knowledge is of any use.
That is what we have to consider, he said.
|
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 Life of the Spider by J. Henri Fabre: like and take away their goods. Man did the same in days of old:
he stripped and ate his fellows. We continue to rob one another,
both as nations and as individuals; but we no longer eat one
another: the custom has grown obsolete since we discovered an
acceptable substitute in the mutton-chop.
Let us not, however, blacken the Spider beyond her deserts. She
does not live by warring on her kith and kin; she does not of her
own accord attempt the conquest of another's property. It needs
extraordinary circumstances to rouse her to these villainies. I
take her from her web and place her on another's. From that
moment, she knows no distinction between meum and tuum: the thing
The Life of the Spider |
