| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen: encroaching people (the Jacksons are very encroaching,
I have always said so: just the sort of people to get
all they can), I said to the boy directly (a great lubberly
fellow of ten years old, you know, who ought to be ashamed
of himself), "_I'll_ take the boards to your father,
Dick, so get you home again as fast as you can."
The boy looked very silly, and turned away without
offering a word, for I believe I might speak pretty sharp;
and I dare say it will cure him of coming marauding
about the house for one while. I hate such greediness--
so good as your father is to the family, employing the man
Mansfield Park |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Cratylus by Plato: process; we have reached a time when the verb and the noun are nearly
perfected, though in no language did they completely perfect themselves,
because for some unknown reason the motive powers of languages seem to have
ceased when they were on the eve of completion: they became fixed or
crystallized in an imperfect form either from the influence of writing and
literature, or because no further differentiation of them was required for
the intelligibility of language. So not without admixture and confusion
and displacement and contamination of sounds and the meanings of words, a
lower stage of language passes into a higher. Thus far we can see and no
further. When we ask the reason why this principle of analogy prevails in
all the vast domain of language, there is no answer to the question; or no
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Grimm's Fairy Tales by Brothers Grimm: he, 'more than I could want.' Then the peasants made up their minds
that they too would fetch some sheep for themselves, a flock apiece,
but the mayor said: 'I come first.' So they went to the water
together, and just then there were some of the small fleecy clouds in
the blue sky, which are called little lambs, and they were reflected
in the water, whereupon the peasants cried: 'We already see the sheep
down below!' The mayor pressed forward and said: 'I will go down
first, and look about me, and if things promise well I'll call you.'
So he jumped in; splash! went the water; it sounded as if he were
calling them, and the whole crowd plunged in after him as one man.
Then the entire village was dead, and the small peasant, as sole heir,
Grimm's Fairy Tales |
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 Poems by Bronte Sisters: A hand has touched these relics old;
And, coating each, slow-formed, appears
The growth of green and antique mould.
All in this house is mossing over;
All is unused, and dim, and damp;
Nor light, nor warmth, the rooms discover--
Bereft for years of fire and lamp.
The sun, sometimes in summer, enters
The casements, with reviving ray;
But the long rains of many winters
Moulder the very walls away.
|
