| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) by Dante Alighieri: With all these families, and others with them,
Florence beheld I in so great repose,
That no occasion had she whence to weep;
With all these families beheld so just
And glorious her people, that the lily
Never upon the spear was placed reversed,
Nor by division was vermilion made."
Paradiso: Canto XVII
As came to Clymene, to be made certain
Of that which he had heard against himself,
He who makes fathers chary still to children,
The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Bunner Sisters by Edith Wharton: He handed her a pencil, and she wrote down her address; then
she walked away blindly between the clocks.
XI
Mr. Loomis, true to his word, wrote a few days later that he
had enquired in vain in the work-shop for any news of Ramy; and as
she folded this letter and laid it between the leaves of her Bible,
Ann Eliza felt that her last hope was gone. Miss Mellins, of
course, had long since suggested the mediation of the police, and
cited from her favourite literature convincing instances of the
supernatural ability of the Pinkerton detective; but Mr. Hawkins,
when called in council, dashed this project by remarking that
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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 Silas Marner by George Eliot: another horse; I was only thinking I'd lost the means of paying you
with the price of Wildfire, as I'd meant to do. Dunsey took him to
the hunt to sell him for me the other day, and after he'd made a
bargain for a hundred and twenty with Bryce, he went after the
hounds, and took some fool's leap or other that did for the horse at
once. If it hadn't been for that, I should have paid you a hundred
pounds this morning."
The Squire had laid down his knife and fork, and was staring at his
son in amazement, not being sufficiently quick of brain to form a
probable guess as to what could have caused so strange an inversion
of the paternal and filial relations as this proposition of his son
Silas Marner |
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 Passionate Pilgrim by William Shakespeare: But whether unripe years did want conceit,
Or he refused to take her figured proffer,
The tender nibbler would not touch the bait,
But smile and jest at every gentle offer:
Then fell she on her back, fair queen, and toward:
He rose and ran away; ah, fool too froward!
V.
If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love?
O never faith could hold, if not to beauty vow'd:
Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll constant prove;
Those thoughts, to me like oaks, to thee like osiers bow'd.
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