| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Verses 1889-1896 by Rudyard Kipling: Ring and blow for the ~Baltic~ now, and head her back to the bay,
And we'll come into the game again -- with a double deck to play!"
They rang and blew the sealers' call -- the poaching cry of the sea --
And they raised the ~Baltic~ out of the mist, and an angry ship was she:
And blind they groped through the whirling white and blind to the bay again,
Till they heard the creak of the ~Stralsund~'s boom
and the clank of her mooring chain.
They laid them down by bitt and boat, their pistols in their belts,
And: "Will you fight for it, Reuben Paine, or will you share the pelts?"
Verses 1889-1896 |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy: sheet, which was folded and tucked in without an envelope,
in the old-fashioned way, she had overlaid the junction with
a large mass of wax without the requisite under-touch of the
same. The seal had cracked, and the letter was open.
Henchard had no reason to suppose the restriction one of
serious weight, and his feeling for his late wife had not
been of the nature of deep respect. "Some trifling fancy or
other of poor Susan's, I suppose," he said; and without
curiosity he allowed his eyes to scan the letter:--
MY DEAR MICHAEL,--For the good of all three of us I have
kept one thing a secret from you till now. I hope you will
The Mayor of Casterbridge |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Selected Writings of Guy De Maupassant by Guy De Maupassant: them. Well, on Saturday. July 8, we left by the five twenty-five
train, and before dinner we went to ground-bait as usual. The
weather promised to keep fine, and I said to Melie: 'All right
for to-morrow!' And she replied: 'It looks like it.' We never
talk more than that together.
"And then we returned to dinner. I was happy and thirsty, and
that was the cause of everything. I said to Melie: 'Look here
Melie, it is fine weather, so suppose I drink a bottle of Casque
a meche. That is a little white wine which we have christened so,
because if you drink too much of it it prevents you from sleeping
and is the opposite of a nightcap. Do you understand me?
|
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 Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: out of it. This public opinion cannot prevent gambling with dice
or stocks, but it can and does compel it to keep comparatively
quiet. But horse-racing is the most public way of gambling, and
with all its immense attractions to the sense and the feelings, -
to which I plead very susceptible, - the disguise is too thin that
covers it, and everybody knows what it means. Its supporters are
the Southern gentry, - fine fellows, no doubt, but not republicans
exactly, as we understand the term, - a few Northern millionnaires
more or less thoroughly millioned, who do not represent the real
people, and the mob of sporting men, the best of whom are commonly
idlers, and the worst very bad neighbors to have near one in a
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
