| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Pericles by William Shakespeare: Hath Thetis' birth-child on the heavens bestow'd:
Wherefore she does, and swears she'll never stint,
Make raging battery upon shores of flint.'
No visor does become black villany
So well as soft and tender flattery.
Let Pericles believe his daughter's dead,
And bear his courses to be ordered
By Lady Fortune; while our scene must play
His daughter's woe and heavy well-a-day
In her unholy service. Patience, then,
And think you now are all in Mytilene.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Long Odds by H. Rider Haggard: was up, and a beautiful moon it was. And then there came that wonderful
hush which sometimes falls over the African bush in the early hours of
the night. No beast was moving, and no bird called. Not a breath of
air stirred the quiet trees, and the shadows did not even quiver, they
only grew. It was very oppressive and very lonely, for there was not a
sign of the cattle or the boys. I was quite thankful for the society of
old Kaptein, who was lying down contentedly against the disselboom,
chewing the cud with a good conscience.
"Presently, however, Kaptein began to get restless. First he snorted,
then he got up and snorted again. I could not make it out, so like a
fool I got down off the waggon-box to have a look round, thinking it
Long Odds |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Kenilworth by Walter Scott: had me at such advantage, Amy, as to become acquainted with the
tale of our marriage, before Elizabeth were fitly prepared, I
were an outcast from her grace for ever--a bankrupt at once in
favour and in fortune, perhaps, for she hath in her a touch of
her father Henry--a victim, and it may be a bloody one, to her
offended and jealous resentment."
"But why, my lord," again urged his lady, "should you deem thus
injuriously of a man of whom you know so little? What you do
know of Tressilian is through me, and it is I who assure you that
in no circumstances will be betray your secret. If I did him
wrong in your behalf, my lord, I am now the more concerned you
Kenilworth |
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 Alexander's Bridge by Willa Cather: Boston was only a powerful machine. Under
the activities of that machine the person who,
in such moments as this, he felt to be himself,
was fading and dying. He remembered how,
when he was a little boy and his father
called him in the morning, he used to leap
from his bed into the full consciousness of
himself. That consciousness was Life itself.
Whatever took its place, action, reflection,
the power of concentrated thought, were only
functions of a mechanism useful to society;
Alexander's Bridge |
