| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Door in the Wall, et. al. by H. G. Wells: Cotopaxi slipped out in one vast convulsion, and a tumult of lava
poured out so high and broad and swift and liquid that in one day
it reached the sea.
So the star, with the wan moon in its wake, marched across the
Pacific, trailed the thunderstorms like the hem of a robe, and the
growing tidal wave that toiled behind it, frothing and eager,
poured over island and island and swept them clear of men. Until
that wave came at last--in a blinding light and with the breath of
a furnace, swift and terrible it came--a wall of water, fifty feet
high, roaring hungrily, upon the long coasts of Asia, and swept
inland across the plains of China. For a space the star, hotter
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Reign of King Edward the Third by William Shakespeare: Employ me how thou wilt in proof thereof.
KING EDWARD.
Thou hearst me say that I do dote on thee.
COUNTESS.
If on my beauty, take it if thou canst;
Though little, I do prize it ten times less;
If on my virtue, take it if thou canst,
For virtue's store by giving doth augment;
Be it on what it will, that I can give
And thou canst take away, inherit it.
KING EDWARD.
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Iliad by Homer: side.
BOOK II
Now the other gods and the armed warriors on the plain slept
soundly, but Jove was wakeful, for he was thinking how to do
honour to Achilles, and destroyed much people at the ships of the
Achaeans. In the end he deemed it would be best to send a lying
dream to King Agamemnon; so he called one to him and said to it,
"Lying Dream, go to the ships of the Achaeans, into the tent of
Agamemnon, and say to him word for word as I now bid you. Tell
him to get the Achaeans instantly under arms, for he shall take
Troy. There are no longer divided counsels among the gods; Juno
The Iliad |
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 Prufrock/Other Observations by T. S. Eliot: That exquisite nocturne, with which we explain
The night and moonshine; music which we seize
To body forth our own vacuity."
She then: "Does this refer to me?"
"Oh no, it is I who am inane."
"You, madam, are the eternal humorist
The eternal enemy of the absolute,
Giving our vagrant moods the slightest twist
With your air indifferent and imperious
At a stroke our mad poetics to confute--"
And--"Are we then so serious?"
Prufrock/Other Observations |
