| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson: Though closer still the blinds we pull
To keep the shady parlour cool,
Yet he will find a chink or two
To slip his golden fingers through.
The dusty attic spider-clad
He, through the keyhole, maketh glad;
And through the broken edge of tiles
Into the laddered hay-loft smiles.
Meantime his golden face around
He bares to all the garden ground,
And sheds a warm and glittering look
A Child's Garden of Verses |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from McTeague by Frank Norris: sleepily with a long, complacent purr.
All at once he stopped purring, leaving an abrupt silence in
the air like the sudden shutting off of a stream of water,
while his eyes grew wide, two lambent disks of yellow in the
heap of black fur.
"Who is there?" cried Trina, sitting back on her heels. In
the stillness that succeeded, the water dripped from her
hands with the steady tick of a clock. Then a brutal
fist swung open the street door of the schoolroom and
McTeague came in. He was drunk; not with that drunkenness
which is stupid, maudlin, wavering on its feet, but with
McTeague |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Cratylus by Plato: nature to be a mere receptacle; and they say that there is a penetrating
power which passes through all this, and is the instrument of creation in
all, and is the subtlest and swiftest element; for if it were not the
subtlest, and a power which none can keep out, and also the swiftest,
passing by other things as if they were standing still, it could not
penetrate through the moving universe. And this element, which
superintends all things and pierces (diaion) all, is rightly called
dikaion; the letter k is only added for the sake of euphony. Thus far, as
I was saying, there is a general agreement about the nature of justice; but
I, Hermogenes, being an enthusiastic disciple, have been told in a mystery
that the justice of which I am speaking is also the cause of the world:
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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 A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift: fore or hind quarter will make a reasonable dish, and seasoned
with a little pepper or salt, will be very good boiled on the
fourth day, especially in winter.
I have reckoned upon a medium, that a child just born will weigh
12 pounds, and in a solar year, if tolerably nursed, encreaseth
to 28 pounds.
I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very
proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of
the parents, seem to have the best title to the children.
Infant's flesh will be in season throughout the year, but more
plentiful in March, and a little before and after; for we are
A Modest Proposal |
