| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Complete Angler by Izaak Walton: usually dressed, he does not. He is objected against, not only for being
full of small forked bones, dispersed through all his body, but that he
eats waterish, and that the flesh of him is not firm, but short and
tasteless. The French esteem him so mean, as to call him Un Villain;
nevertheless he may be so dressed as to make him very good meat; as,
namely, if he be a large Chub, then dress him thus:
First, scale him, and then wash him clean, and then take out his guts;
and to that end make the hole as little, and near to his gills, as you may
conveniently, and especially make clean his throat from the grass and
weeds that are usually in it; for if that be not very clean, it will make
him to taste very sour. Having so done, put some sweet herbs into his
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde: Jetant son amarre au pilier,
Devant une facade rose,
Sur le marbre d'un escalier.
How exquisite they were! As one read them, one seemed to be
floating down the green water-ways of the pink and pearl city,
seated in a black gondola with silver prow and trailing curtains.
The mere lines looked to him like those straight lines of
turquoise-blue that follow one as one pushes out to the Lido.
The sudden flashes of colour reminded him of the gleam of
the opal-and-iris-throated birds that flutter round the tall
honeycombed Campanile, or stalk, with such stately grace,
The Picture of Dorian Gray |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Street of Seven Stars by Mary Roberts Rinehart: man," she accused him.
Peter smiled. The car was close. Some imp of recklessness, some
perversion of humor seized him.
"My dear Mrs. Boyer," he said, "that was in jest purely. Besides,
I did not know that you were there!"
Mrs. Boyer was a literal person without humor. It was outraged
American womanhood incarnate that got into the street-car and
settled its broadcloth of the best quality indignantly on the
cane seat. It was outraged American womanhood that flung open the
door of Marie Jedlicka's flat, and stalking into Marie Jedlicka's
sitting room confronted her husband as he read a month-old
|
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 Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: was like, in Buchanan's early days, is too notorious; and there
remains proof enough--in the writings, for instance, of Sir David
Lindsay--that the morality of the populace, which looked up to the
nobles as its example and its guide, was not a whit better. As
anarchy increased, immorality was likely to increase likewise; and
Scotland was in serious danger of falling into such a state as that
into which Poland fell, to its ruin, within a hundred and fifty
years after; in which the savagery of feudalism, without its order
or its chivalry, would be varnished over by a thin coating of French
"civilisation," and, as in the case of Bothwell, the vices of the
court of Paris should be added to those of the Northern freebooter.
|
