| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Confessio Amantis by John Gower: And chargeth hem that thei ne fle, 3750
And tawhte hem hou they scholde ascrie
Alle in o vois per compaignie,
And what word ek thei scholden speke,
And hou thei scholde here pottes breke
Echon with other, whan thei herde
That he himselve ferst so ferde;
For whan thei come into the stede,
He bad hem do riht as he dede.
And thus stalkende forth a pas
This noble Duk, whan time was, 3760
Confessio Amantis |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Second Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: "Men, is it? My office protects me. All India knows I am holy."
The Adjutant, being a first-class scavenger, is allowed to go
where he pleases, and so this one never flinched.
"I am not worth a blow from anything better than an old shoe,"
said the Jackal, and listened again. "Hark to that footfall!"
he went on. "That was no country leather, but the shod foot of
a white-face. Listen again! Iron hits iron up there! It is a
gun! Friend, those heavy-footed, foolish English are coming to
speak with the Mugger."
"Warn him, then. He was called Protector of the Poor by some one
not unlike a starving Jackal but a little time ago."
The Second Jungle Book |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Lock and Key Library by Julian Hawthorne, Ed.: fiacre* or wish to get off quietly o' foot when the opera is done.
At the end of it, toward the theater, 'tis lighted by a small
candle, the light of which is almost lost before you get halfway
down, but near the door--it is more for ornament than use--you see
it as a fixed star of the least magnitude; it burns, but does
little good to the world that we know of.
*Hackney coach.
In returning [from the opera] along this passage, I discerned, as I
approached within five or six paces of the door, two ladies
standing arm in arm with their backs against the wall, waiting, as
I imagined, for a fiacre. As they were next the door, I thought
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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 Statesman by Plato: enquiry. And please to say, whether he, too, should be ranked among those
who have science.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: Then the sciences must be divided as before?
YOUNG SOCRATES: I dare say.
STRANGER: But yet the division will not be the same?
YOUNG SOCRATES: How then?
STRANGER: They will be divided at some other point.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: Where shall we discover the path of the Statesman? We must find
and separate off, and set our seal upon this, and we will set the mark of
Statesman |
