| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift: those who are beggars by profession, to the bulk of farmers,
cottagers and labourers, with their wives and children, who are
beggars in effect; I desire those politicians who dislike my
overture, and may perhaps be so bold to attempt an answer, that
they will first ask the parents of these mortals, whether they
would not at this day think it a great happiness to have been
sold for food at a year old, in the manner I prescribe, and
thereby have avoided such a perpetual scene of misfortunes, as
they have since gone through, by the oppression of landlords, the
impossibility of paying rent without money or trade, the want of
common sustenance, with neither house nor cloaths to cover them
A Modest Proposal |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: And now that I have named to the reader all our animals and
insects without exception - only I find I have forgotten the
flies - he will be able to appreciate the singular privacy
and silence of our days. It was not only man who was
excluded: animals, the song of birds, the lowing of cattle,
the bleating of sheep, clouds even, and the variations of the
weather, were here also wanting; and as, day after day, the
sky was one dome of blue, and the pines below us stood
motionless in the still air, so the hours themselves were
marked out from each other only by the series of our own
affairs, and the sun's great period as he ranged westward
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from O Pioneers! by Willa Cather: temptations are. In cold weather he sits by the
kitchen fire and makes hammocks or mends
harness until it is time to go to bed. Then he
says his prayers at great length behind the
stove, puts on his buffalo-skin coat and goes
out to his room in the barn.
Alexandra herself has changed very little.
Her figure is fuller, and she has more color. She
seems sunnier and more vigorous than she did as
a young girl. But she still has the same calmness
O Pioneers! |
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 The Princess by Alfred Tennyson: Or baser courses, children of despair.'
'Poor boy,' she said, 'can he not read--no books?
Quoit, tennis, ball--no games? nor deals in that
Which men delight in, martial exercise?
To nurse a blind ideal like a girl,
Methinks he seems no better than a girl;
As girls were once, as we ourself have been:
We had our dreams; perhaps he mixt with them:
We touch on our dead self, nor shun to do it,
Being other--since we learnt our meaning here,
To lift the woman's fallen divinity
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