| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Idylls of the King by Alfred Tennyson: And Gareth crying pricked against the cry;
But when they closed--in a moment--at one touch
Of that skilled spear, the wonder of the world--
Went sliding down so easily, and fell,
That when he found the grass within his hands
He laughed; the laughter jarred upon Lynette:
Harshly she asked him, 'Shamed and overthrown,
And tumbled back into the kitchen-knave,
Why laugh ye? that ye blew your boast in vain?'
'Nay, noble damsel, but that I, the son
Of old King Lot and good Queen Bellicent,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Poems by Bronte Sisters: The evening dew draws from the ground;
How soothingly they spread!
Yes; I was tired, but not at heart;
No--that beats full of sweet content,
For now I have my natural part
Of action with adventure blent;
Cast forth on the wide world with thee,
And all my once waste energy
To weighty purpose bent.
Yet--sayst thou, spies around us roam,
Our aims are termed conspiracy?
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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 Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: His cracked voice resembled the noise made by a stone falling into a
well. The young woman nervously pressed my hand, as if she were trying
to avoid a precipice, and shivered when that man, at whom she happened
to be looking, turned upon her two lifeless, sea-green eyes, which
could be compared to nothing save tarnished mother-of-pearl.
"I am afraid," she said, putting her lips to my ear.
"You can speak," I replied; "he hears with great difficulty."
"You know him, then?"
"Yes."
Thereupon she summoned courage to scrutinize for a moment that
creature for which no human language has a name, form without
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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 The Republic by Plato: Yes, he said, and a rare purgation.
Yes, I said, not the sort of purgation which the physicians make of the
body; for they take away the worse and leave the better part, but he does
the reverse.
If he is to rule, I suppose that he cannot help himself.
What a blessed alternative, I said:--to be compelled to dwell only with the
many bad, and to be by them hated, or not to live at all!
Yes, that is the alternative.
And the more detestable his actions are to the citizens the more satellites
and the greater devotion in them will he require?
Certainly.
The Republic |
