| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso: That many great exploits shall bring to fine."
This said, he vanished from his sleeping friend,
Like smoke in wind, or mist in Titan's shine;
Sleep fled likewise, and in his troubled thought,
With wonder, pleasure; joy, with marvel fought.
XX
The duke looked up, and saw the azure sky
With argent beams of silver morning spread,
And started up, for praise axed virtue lie
In toil and travel, sin and shame in bed:
His arms he took, his sword girt to his thigh,
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Memorabilia by Xenophon: life, in your opinion? Or, to come nearer home--you are yourself a
Hellene--which among Hellenes enjoy the happier existence, think you,
the dominant or the subject states?
[14] Or, "the outer world, the non-Hellenic races and nationalities of
which we have any knowledge."
[15] Lit. "Libya."
Nay,[16] I would have you to understand (exclaimed Aristippus) that I
am just as far from placing myself in the ranks of slavery; there is,
I take it, a middle path between the two which it is my ambition to
tread, avoiding rule and slavery alike; it lies through freedom--the
high road which leads to happiness.
The Memorabilia |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: I might have been content to starve. But you were to be given
back to me! Do you think, then, dear Clifford," added she, with
a wretched smile, "that I have brought an irretrievable disgrace
on the old house, by opening a little shop in the front gable?
Our great-great-grandfather did the same, when there was far less
need! Are you ashamed of me?"
"Shame! Disgrace! Do you speak these words to me, Hepzibah?"
said Clifford,--not angrily, however; for when a man's spirit has
been thoroughly crushed, he may be peevish at small offences, but
never resentful of great ones. So he spoke with only a grieved
emotion. "It was not kind to say so, Hepzibah! What shame can
House of Seven Gables |
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 Road to Oz by L. Frank Baum: Foxes, as you know, are fond of chicken and other fowl; so they served
chicken soup and roasted turkey and stewed duck and fried grouse and
broiled quail and goose pie, and as the cooking was excellent the
King's guests enjoyed the meal and ate heartily of the various dishes.
The party went to the theater, where they saw a play acted by foxes
dressed in costumes of brilliantly colored feathers. The play was
about a fox-girl who was stolen by some wicked wolves and carried to
their cave; and just as they were about to kill her and eat her a
company of fox-soldiers marched up, saved the girl, and put all the
wicked wolves to death.
"How do you like it?" the King asked Dorothy.
The Road to Oz |
