| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from What is Man? by Mark Twain: may become a beggar; the illustrious statesman can make a vital
mistake and be dropped and forgotten; the illustrious general can
lose a decisive battle and with it the consideration of men; but
once a prince always a prince--that is to say, an imitation god,
and neither hard fortune nor an infamous character nor an addled
brain nor the speech of an ass can undeify him. By common
consent of all the nations and all the ages the most valuable
thing in this world is the homage of men, whether deserved or
undeserved. It follows without doubt or question, then, that the
most desirable position possible is that of a prince. And I
think it also follows that the so-called usurpations with which
What is Man? |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Twilight Land by Howard Pyle: It took him maybe an hour to count all the money and jewels he
had brought up with him. After he had done that, he began to
wonder what was inside of the little door at the back of the
room. First he wondered; then he began to grow curious; then he
began to itch and tingle and burn as though fifty thousand
I-want-to-know nettles were sticking into him from top to toe. At
last he could stand it no longer. "I'll just go down yonder,"
says he, "and peep through the key-hole; perhaps I can see what
is there without opening the door."
So down he took the key, and off he marched to the garden. He
opened the trap-door, and went down the steep steps to the room
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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 The Odyssey by Homer: the women of the household she loved him most, and she had
nursed him when a little one. Then he opened the doors of
the well-builded chamber and sat him on the bed and took
off his soft doublet, and put it in the wise old woman's
hands. So she folded the doublet and smoothed it, and hung
it on a pin by the jointed bedstead, and went forth on her
way from the room, and pulled to the door with the silver
handle, and drew home the bar with the thong. There, all
night through, wrapped in a fleece of wool, he meditated in
his heart upon the journey that Athene had showed him.
Book II
The Odyssey |
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 Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn: of even such magical days. July was dying;--for weeks no fleck
of cloud had broken the heaven's blue dream of eternity; winds
held their breath; slow waveless caressed the bland brown beach
with a sound as of kisses and whispers. To one who found himself
alone, beyond the limits of the village and beyond the hearing of
its voices,--the vast silence, the vast light, seemed full of
weirdness. And these hushes, these transparencies, do not always
inspire a causeless apprehension: they are omens
sometimes--omens of coming tempest. Nature,--incomprehensible
Sphinx!--before her mightiest bursts of rage, ever puts forth her
divinest witchery, makes more manifest her awful beauty ...
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