| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce: forcing him to the surface. He felt his head emerge; his
eyes were blinded by the sunlight; his chest expanded
convulsively, and with a supreme and crowning agony his lungs
engulfed a great draught of air, which instantly he expelled
in a shriek!
He was now in full possession of his physical senses. They
were, indeed, preternaturally keen and alert. Something in
the awful disturbance of his organic system had so exalted
and refined them that they made record of things never before
perceived. He felt the ripples upon his face and heard their
separate sounds as they struck. He looked at the forest on
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne: forth into the public ways, and wedging their not unsubstantial
persons, if occasion were, into the throng nearest to the
scaffold at an execution. Morally, as well as materially, there
was a coarser fibre in those wives and maidens of old English
birth and breeding than in their fair descendants, separated from
them by a series of six or seven generations; for, throughout
that chain of ancestry, every successive mother had transmitted
to her child a fainter bloom, a more delicate and briefer beauty,
and a slighter physical frame, if not
The Scarlet Letter |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Kenilworth by Walter Scott: "Sorry!--it would be the blithest news I ever heard of him, since
it would ensure me he was not hanged. But let him pass--I doubt
his end will never do such credit to his friends. Were it so, I
should say"--(taking another cup of sack)--"Here's God rest him,
with all my heart."
"Tush, man," replied the traveller, "never fear but you will have
credit by your nephew yet, especially if he be the Michael
Lambourne whom I knew, and loved very nearly, or altogether, as
well as myself. Can you tell me no mark by which I could judge
whether they be the same?"
"Faith, none that I can think of," answered Giles Gosling,
Kenilworth |
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 Egmont by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe: Machiavel!
Machiavel. Pardon me, your Highness, my thoughts will appear to you but
as idle fancies; and though you always seem well satisfied with my
services, you have seldom felt inclined to follow my advice. How often
have you said in jest: "You see too far, Machiavel! You should be an
historian; he who acts, must provide for the exigence of the hour." And yet
have I not predicted this terrible history? Have I not foreseen it all?
Regent. I too foresee many things, without being able to avert them.
Machiavel. In one word, then:---you will not be able to suppress the new
faith. Let it be recognized, separate its votaries from the true believers,
give them churches of their own, include them within the pale of social
Egmont |
