| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from King James Bible: RTH 2:10 Then she fell on her face, and bowed herself to the ground,
and said unto him, Why have I found grace in thine eyes, that thou
shouldest take knowledge of me, seeing I am a stranger?
RTH 2:11 And Boaz answered and said unto her, It hath fully been shewed
me, all that thou hast done unto thy mother in law since the death of
thine husband: and how thou hast left thy father and thy mother, and the
land of thy nativity, and art come unto a people which thou knewest not
heretofore.
RTH 2:12 The LORD recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee
of the LORD God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust.
RTH 2:13 Then she said, Let me find favour in thy sight, my lord; for
King James Bible |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: presented my letter from his friend the grandee in the island,
and was received with much kindness. This great lord, whose name
was Munodi, ordered me an apartment in his own house, where I
continued during my stay, and was entertained in a most
hospitable manner.
The next morning after my arrival, he took me in his chariot to
see the town, which is about half the bigness of London; but the
houses very strangely built, and most of them out of repair. The
people in the streets walked fast, looked wild, their eyes fixed,
and were generally in rags. We passed through one of the town
gates, and went about three miles into the country, where I saw
Gulliver's Travels |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: go to Hellenic art for our models.
The Greeks were, in the highest sense of the word, an
intellectual race; but they never allowed the mind to tyrannize
over the body. Spiritual perfection, accompanied by corporeal
feebleness, was the invention of asceticism; and the Greeks were
never ascetics. Diogenes might scorn superfluous luxuries, but if
he ever rolled and tumbled his tub about as Rabelais says he did,
it is clear that the victory of spirit over body formed no part
of his theory of things. Such an idea would have been
incomprehensible to a Greek in Plato's time. Their consciences
were not over active. They were not burdened with a sense of
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
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 Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: that many persons of her social sphere believed that the Abbe Troubert
had designs on the old maid's property, and was binding her to him
unawares with infinite patience, and really directing her while he
seemed to be obeying without ever letting her percieve in him the
slightest wish on his part to govern her.
When the Abbe Chapeloud died, the old maid, who desired a lodger with
quiet ways, naturally thought of the vicar. Before the canon's will
was made known she had meditated offering his rooms to the Abbe
Troubert, who was not very comfortable on the ground-floor. But when
the Abbe Birotteau, on receiving his legacy, came to settle in writing
the terms of his board she saw he was so in love with the apartment,
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