| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Camille by Alexandre Dumas: "Believe me, it would be better to wait until you are quite
well."
"Have no fear; I shall be quite composed. Besides, I should
simply go out of my mind if I were not to carry out a resolution
which I have set myself to carry out. I swear to you that I shall
never be myself again until I have seen Marguerite. It is perhaps
the thirst of the fever, a sleepless night's dream, a moment's
delirium; but though I were to become a Trappist, like M. de
Rance', after having seen, I will see."
"I understand," I said to Armand, "and I am at your service. Have
you seen Julie Duprat?"
Camille |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw: it, a National Theatre, for the better instruction and gracing of your
Majesty's subjects.
ELIZABETH. Why, sir, are there not theatres enow on the Bankside and
in Blackfriars?
SHAKESPEAR. Madam: these are the adventures of needy and desperate
men that must, to save themselves from perishing of want, give the
sillier sort of people what they best like; and what they best like,
God knows, is not their own betterment and instruction, as we well see
by the example of the churches, which must needs compel men to
frequent them, though they be open to all without charge. Only when
there is a matter of a murder, or a plot, or a pretty youth in
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: Come while their balms the linden-blossoms shed! -
Come while the rose is red, -
While blue-eyed Summer smiles
On the green ripples round you sunken piles
Washed by the moon-wave warm from Indian isles,
And on the sultry air
The chestnuts spread their palms like holy men in prayer!
Oh, for thy burning lips to fire my brain
With thrills of wild sweet pain! -
On life's autumnal blast,
Like shrivelled leaves, youth's, passion-flowers are cast, -
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
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 My Antonia by Willa Cather: oath it just fit the gash in the front of the old man's face.
That there Krajiek had been sneakin' round, pale and quiet,
and when he seen me examinin' the axe, he begun whimperin',
"My God, man, don't do that!" "I reckon I'm a-goin'
to look into this," says I. Then he begun to squeal like a rat
and run about wringin' his hands. "They'll hang me!" says he.
"My God, they'll hang me sure!"'
Fuchs spoke up impatiently. `Krajiek's gone silly, Jake, and so
have you. The old man wouldn't have made all them preparations
for Krajiek to murder him, would he? It don't hang together.
The gun was right beside him when Ambrosch found him.'
My Antonia |
