| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy: the pain he has caused another man; and then may he
ache, and wish, and curse, and yearn -- as I do now!"
"Don't, don't, O, don't pray down evil upon him!"
she implored in a miserable cry. "Anything but that --
anything. O, be kind to him, sir, for I love him true ."
Boldwood's ideas had reached that point of fusion at
which outline and consistency entirely disappear. The
impending night appeared to concentrate in his eye.
He did not hear her at all now.
"I'll punish him -- by my soul, that will I! I'll meet
him, soldier or no, and I'll horsewhip the untimely
Far From the Madding Crowd |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Oedipus Trilogy by Sophocles: And give the rein to all thy pent-up rage.
OEDIPUS
Yea, I am wroth, and will not stint my words,
But speak my whole mind. Thou methinks thou art he,
Who planned the crime, aye, and performed it too,
All save the assassination; and if thou
Hadst not been blind, I had been sworn to boot
That thou alone didst do the bloody deed.
TEIRESIAS
Is it so? Then I charge thee to abide
By thine own proclamation; from this day
Oedipus Trilogy |
| 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: without a break, and all that while it is certain death to be
abroad. Kotuko laid up a snow-house large enough to take in the
hand-sleigh (never be separated from your meat), and while he
was shaping the last irregular block of ice that makes the
key-stone of the roof, he saw a Thing looking at him from a
little cliff of ice half a mile away. The air was hazy, and the
Thing seemed to be forty feet long and ten feet high, with
twenty feet of tail and a shape that quivered all along the
outlines. The girl saw it too, but instead of crying aloud with
terror, said quietly, "That is Quiquern. What comes after?"
"He will speak to me," said Kotuko; but the snow-knife trembled
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 Desert Gold by Zane Grey: crested, upheaved lava that would have been almost impassable even
without its silver coating of choya cactus. There were benches
and ledges and ridges bare and glistening in the sun. From the
crests of these Yaqui's searching falcon gaze roved near and far
for signs of sheep, and Gale used his glass on the reaches of lava
that slanted steeply upward to the corrugated peaks, and down over
endless heave and roll and red-waved slopes. The heat smoked up
from the lava, and this, with the red color and the shiny choyas,
gave the impression of a world of smoldering fire.
Farther along the slope Yaqui halted and crawled behind projections
to a point commanding a view over an extraordinary section of
Desert Gold |
