| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: might will to weld a Greece and an Asia into one; a Napoleon might resolve
to create of a diversified Europe one consolidated state; and by dint of
skill and determination they might for a moment appear to be accomplishing
that which they desired; but the constraining individual will being
withdrawn, the object of their toil has melted away, as the little heap of
damp sand gathered under the palm of a child's hand on the sea-shore, melts
away, scattered by the wind and washed out by the waves, the moment the
hand that shaped it is withdrawn; while the small, soft, indefinite, watery
fragment of jelly-fish lying beside it, though tossed hither and thither by
water and wind, yet retains its shape and grows, because its particles are
bound by an internal and organic force.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Othello by William Shakespeare: Oth. He, Woman;
I say thy Husband: Do'st vnderstand the word?
My Friend, thy Husband; honest, honest Iago.
Aemil. If he say so, may his pernicious Soule
Rot halfe a graine a day: he lyes to'th' heart,
She was too fond of her most filthy Bargaine
Oth. Hah?
Aemil. Do thy worst:
This deede of thine is no more worthy Heauen,
Then thou was't worthy her
Oth. Peace, you were best.
Othello |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from 'Twixt Land & Sea by Joseph Conrad: fact, intimate as we were, I had a pretty clear notion of the
general run of his business.
But as we are going ashore in his gig he asked suddenly: "By the
way, do you know where Heemskirk is?"
I eyed him covertly, and was reassured. He had asked the question,
not as a lover, but as a trader. I told him that I had heard in
Palembang that the Neptun was on duty down about Flores and
Sumbawa. Quite out of his way. He expressed his satisfaction.
"You know," he went on, "that fellow, when he gets on the Borneo
coast, amuses himself by knocking down my beacons. I have had to
put up a few to help me in and out of the rivers. Early this year
'Twixt Land & Sea |
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 Tour Through Eastern Counties of England by Daniel Defoe: Leicester; and an infinite throng of other things of smaller value
every morning.
To attend this fair, and the prodigious conflux of people which
come to it, there are sometimes no less than fifty hackney coaches
which come from London, and ply night and morning to carry the
people to and from Cambridge; for there the gross of the people
lodge; nay, which is still more strange, there are wherries brought
from London on waggons to ply upon the little river Cam, and to row
people up and down from the town, and from the fair as occasion
presents.
It is not to be wondered at, if the town of Cambridge cannot
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