| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Macbeth by William Shakespeare: (Which still hath been both graue, and prosperous)
In this dayes Councell: but wee'le take to morrow.
Is't farre you ride?
Ban. As farre, my Lord, as will fill vp the time
'Twixt this, and Supper. Goe not my Horse the better,
I must become a borrower of the Night,
For a darke houre, or twaine
Macb. Faile not our Feast
Ban. My Lord, I will not
Macb. We heare our bloody Cozens are bestow'd
In England, and in Ireland, not confessing
Macbeth |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Blue Flower by Henry van Dyke: and careful estimate would be necessary. If Keene was
labouring under some strange delusion, some disorder of mind,
how could I estimate its nature or extent, without time and
study, perhaps without expert advice? To wait a little would
be prudent, for his sake as well as for the sake of others.
If there was some extraordinary, reality behind his mysterious
hints, it would need patience and skill to test it. I gave
him the promise for which he asked.
At once, as if relieved, he sprang up, and crying, "Come
on, follow me!" began to make his way up the bed of the brook.
It was one of the wildest walks that I have ever taken. He
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: space, as he might have clasped a weeping child; then she drew
back and put him gently from her.
"What humiliation!" she lamented.
"Do you think I blame you for what has happened?"
"Alas, was it not my foolish letter that brought you to this
plight? And how nobly you defended me! How generous it was of
you not to show the letter! If my father knew I had written to
the Ambassador to save me from this dreadful marriage his anger
against me would be even greater."
"Ah--it was that you wrote for?" cried Tony with unaccountable
relief.
|
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 Mosses From An Old Manse by Nathaniel Hawthorne: respects his genius and the objects to which it is directed.
For a time Owen Warland succumbed to this severe but inevitable
test. He spent a few sluggish weeks with his head so continually
resting in his hands that the towns-people had scarcely an
opportunity to see his countenance. When at last it was again
uplifted to the light of day, a cold, dull, nameless change was
perceptible upon it. In the opinion of Peter Hovenden, however,
and that order of sagacious understandings who think that life
should be regulated, like clockwork, with leaden weights, the
alteration was entirely for the better. Owen now, indeed, applied
himself to business with dogged industry. It was marvellous to
Mosses From An Old Manse |
