| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare: Our Queene and all her Elues come heere anon
Rob. The King doth keepe his Reuels here to night,
Take heed the Queene come not within his sight,
For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,
Because that she, as her attendant, hath
A louely boy stolne from an Indian King,
She neuer had so sweet a changeling,
And iealous Oberon would haue the childe
Knight of his traine, to trace the Forrests wilde.
But she (perforce) with-holds the loued boy,
Crownes him with flowers, and makes him all her ioy.
A Midsummer Night's Dream |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sophist by Plato: without number?
And now arises the greatest difficulty of all. If not-being is
inconceivable, how can not-being be refuted? And am I not contradicting
myself at this moment, in speaking either in the singular or the plural of
that to which I deny both plurality and unity? You, Theaetetus, have the
might of youth, and I conjure you to exert yourself, and, if you can, to
find an expression for not-being which does not imply being and number.
'But I cannot.' Then the Sophist must be left in his hole. We may call
him an image-maker if we please, but he will only say, 'And pray, what is
an image?' And we shall reply, 'A reflection in the water, or in a
mirror'; and he will say, 'Let us shut our eyes and open our minds; what is
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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 Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: for their object something out of self, accorded well with my
experience among my protectors and with the wants which were
forever alive in my own bosom. But I thought Werter himself
a more divine being than I had ever beheld or imagined;
his character contained no pretension, but it sank deep.
The disquisitions upon death and suicide were calculated
to fill me with wonder. I did not pretend to enter into
the merits of the case, yet I inclined towards the opinions
of the hero, whose extinction I wept, without precisely
understanding it.
"As I read, however, I applied much personally to my own feelings
Frankenstein |
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 Fantastic Fables by Ambrose Bierce: are you in there for?"
"Sir," replied the Distinguished Advocate of Republican
Institutions, "a ship is expected, bearing His Majesty the King of
the Fly-Speck Islands, and I wish to be the first to grasp the
crowned hand."
"But," said the Spectator, "you said in your famous speech before
the Society for the Prevention of the Protrusion of Nail Heads from
Plank Sidewalks that Kings were blood-smeared oppressors and hell-
bound loafers."
"My dear sir," said the Distinguished Advocate of Republican
Institutions, without removing his eyes from the horizon, "you
Fantastic Fables |
