| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy: refined being, was she not his own all the time? Not so Giles; he
felt doubtful--perhaps a trifle cynical--for that strand was wound
into him with the rest. He looked at his clothes with misgiving,
then with indifference.
It was his custom during the planting season to carry a specimen
apple-tree to market with him as an advertisement of what he dealt
in. This had been tied across the gig; and as it would be left
behind in the town, it would cause no inconvenience to Miss Grace
Melbury coming home.
He drove away, the twigs nodding with each step of the horse; and
Melbury went in-doors. Before the gig had passed out of sight,
The Woodlanders |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane: his forehead in an oiled bang. His rather pugged nose seemed to
revolt from contact with a bristling moustache of short, wire-like
hairs. His blue double-breasted coat, edged with black braid,
buttoned close to a red puff tie, and his patent-leather shoes
looked like murder-fitted weapons.
His mannerisms stamped him as a man who had a correct sense of
his personal superiority. There was valor and contempt for
circumstances in the glance of his eye. He waved his hands like a
man of the world, who dismisses religion and philosophy, and says
"Fudge." He had certainly seen everything and with each curl of
his lip, he declared that it amounted to nothing. Maggie
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets |
| 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.: again begin to strain her eyeballs, and start up in bed to watch
some phantom of her poor, fevered heart, as if it seemed vanishing
into some mighty distance.
After nearly seven weeks passed in this agitating state, suddenly,
on one morning, the earliest and the loveliest of dawning spring, a
change was announced to us all as having taken place in Margaret;
but it was a change, alas! that ushered in the last great change of
all. The conflict, which had for so long a period raged within
her, and overthrown her reason, was at an end; the strife was over,
and nature was settling into an everlasting rest. In the course of
the night she had recovered her senses. When the morning light
|
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 Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche: In you, ye higher men, there must be more of that which the magician
calleth his evil spirit of magic and deceit:--we must indeed be different.
And verily, we spake and thought long enough together ere Zarathustra came
home to his cave, for me not to be unaware that we ARE different.
We SEEK different things even here aloft, ye and I. For I seek more
SECURITY; on that account have I come to Zarathustra. For he is still the
most steadfast tower and will--
--To-day, when everything tottereth, when all the earth quaketh. Ye,
however, when I see what eyes ye make, it almost seemeth to me that ye seek
MORE INSECURITY,
--More horror, more danger, more earthquake. Ye long (it almost seemeth so
Thus Spake Zarathustra |
