| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Anabasis by Xenophon: Master of Balliol College
Regius Professor of Greek in the University of Oxford
Xenophon the Athenian was born 431 B.C. He was a
pupil of Socrates. He marched with the Spartans,
and was exiled from Athens. Sparta gave him land
and property in Scillus, where he lived for many
years before having to move once more, to settle
in Corinth. He died in 354 B.C.
The Anabasis is his story of the march to Persia
to aid Cyrus, who enlisted Greek help to try and
take the throne from Artaxerxes, and the ensuing
Anabasis |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Message by Honore de Balzac: ferocious hunger familiar to convalescents, sheer animal
appetite, had overpowered all human sensibilities. In that little
space I had seen frank and undisguised human nature under two
very different aspects, in such a sort that there was a certain
grotesque element in the very midst of a most terrible tragedy.
The evening that followed was dreary. I was tired. The canon
racked his brains to discover a reason for his niece's tears. The
lady's husband silently digested his dinner; content, apparently,
with the Countess' rather vague explanation, sent through the
maid, putting forward some feminine ailment as her excuse. We all
went early to bed.
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne: to Hester's cottage, demanding why they were so wretched, and
what the remedy! Hester comforted and counselled them, as best
she might. She assured them, too, of her firm belief that, at
some brighter period, when the world should have grown ripe for
it, in Heaven's own time, a new truth would be revealed, in order
to establish the whole relation between man and woman on a surer
ground of mutual happiness. Earlier in life, Hester had vainly
imagined that she herself might be the destined
The Scarlet Letter |
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 Richard III by William Shakespeare: Thy mother's name is ominous to children.
If thou wilt outstrip death, go cross the seas,
And live with Richmond, from the reach of hell.
Go, hie thee, hie thee from this slaughter-house,
Lest thou increase the number of the dead,
And make me die the thrall of Margaret's curse,
Nor mother, wife, nor England's counted queen.
STANLEY. Full of wise care is this your counsel, madam.
Take all the swift advantage of the hours;
You shall have letters from me to my son
In your behalf, to meet you on the way.
Richard III |
