| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson: 'Yes,' said I.
'And your friend who went by just now?'
He also was unmarried.
O then - all was well. She could not have wives left alone at
home; but since there were no wives in the question, we were doing
the best we could.
'To see about one in the world,' said the husband, 'IL N'Y A QUE CA
- there is nothing else worth while. A man, look you, who sticks
in his own village like a bear,' he went on, ' - very well, he sees
nothing. And then death is the end of all. And he has seen
nothing.'
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Prufrock/Other Observations by T. S. Eliot: Talking of Michelangelo.
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair--
(They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!")
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin--
(They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!")
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
Prufrock/Other Observations |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Second Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: to track on all fours, gave his shrunken limbs the look of
knotted grass-stems. But his eye, under his matted forelock,
was cool and quiet, for Bagheera was his adviser in this time
of trouble, and told him to go quietly, hunt slowly, and never,
on any account, to lose his temper.
"It is an evil time," said the Black Panther, one furnace-hot
evening, "but it will go if we can live till the end. Is thy
stomach full, Man-cub?"
"There is stuff in my stomach, but I get no good of it.
Think you, Bagheera, the Rains have forgotten us and will
never come again?"
The Second Jungle Book |
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 Critias by Plato: Moreover, the land reaped the benefit of the annual rainfall, not as now
losing the water which flows off the bare earth into the sea, but, having
an abundant supply in all places, and receiving it into herself and
treasuring it up in the close clay soil, it let off into the hollows the
streams which it absorbed from the heights, providing everywhere abundant
fountains and rivers, of which there may still be observed sacred memorials
in places where fountains once existed; and this proves the truth of what I
am saying.
Such was the natural state of the country, which was cultivated, as we may
well believe, by true husbandmen, who made husbandry their business, and
were lovers of honour, and of a noble nature, and had a soil the best in
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