| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot: I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
One must be so careful these days.
Unreal City, 60
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
Flowed up tbe hill and down King William Street,
The Waste Land |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: and dwelling bodily among them, that they might behold His glory, full
of grace and truth, and see that it was at once the perfection of man
and the perfection of God: that that which was most divine was most
human, and that which was most human, most divine. That was the outcome
of their metaphysic, that they had found the Absolute One; because One
existed in whom the apparent antagonism between that which is eternally
and that which becomes in time, between the ideal and the actual,
between the spiritual and the material, in a word, between God and man,
was explained and reconciled for ever.
And Proclus's prayer, on the other hand, was the outcome of the
Neoplatonists' metaphysic, the end of all their search after the One,
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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 Polly of the Circus by Margaret Mayo: might be ill."
"What's that to you?"
"She ISN'T ill?" Douglas demanded anxiously, oblivious to the
gruffness in the big fellow's voice.
"She's all right," Jim answered shortly as he shifted uneasily
from one foot to the other, and avoided the pastor's burning
gaze.
"And she's happy? she's content?"
"Sure."
"I'm glad," said Douglas, dully. He tried to think of some way
to prolong their talk. "I've never heard from her, you know."
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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 Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: invite him to Pemberley, or admit his society in town. In town I
believe he chiefly lived, but his studying the law was a mere
pretence, and being now free from all restraint, his life was a life
of idleness and dissipation. For about three years I heard little of
him; but on the decease of the incumbent of the living which had
been designed for him, he applied to me again by letter for the
presentation. His circumstances, he assured me, and I had no
difficulty in believing it, were exceedingly bad. He had found
the law a most unprofitable study, and was now absolutely
resolved on being ordained, if I would present him to the living
in question-- of which he trusted there could be little doubt, as
Pride and Prejudice |
