| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Schoolmistress and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov: dejectedly, as though like me it realized its loneliness. I stood
a long while looking at it.
"My youth is thrown away for nothing, like a useless cigarette
end," I went on musing. "My parents died when I was a little
child; I was expelled from the high school, I was born of a noble
family, but I have received neither education nor breeding, and
I have no more knowledge than the humblest mechanic. I have no
refuge, no relations, no friends, no work I like. I am not fitted
for anything, and in the prime of my powers I am good for nothing
but to be stuffed into this little station; I have known nothing
but trouble and failure all my life. What can happen worse?"
The Schoolmistress and Other Stories |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Oedipus Trilogy by Sophocles: Nothing can make me other than I am.
CHORUS
(Str.)
If my soul prophetic err not, if my wisdom aught avail,
Thee, Cithaeron, I shall hail,
As the nurse and foster-mother of our Oedipus shall greet
Ere tomorrow's full moon rises, and exalt thee as is meet.
Dance and song shall hymn thy praises, lover of our royal race.
Phoebus, may my words find grace!
(Ant.)
Child, who bare thee, nymph or goddess? sure thy sure was more than
Oedipus Trilogy |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy: could be translated as riotousness was evangelized
today into the splendour of pious rhetoric; animalism
had become fanaticism; Paganism Paulinism; the bold
rolling eye that had flashed upon her form in the old
time with such mastery now beamed with the rude energy
of a theolatry that was almost ferocious. Those black
angularities which his face had used to put on when his
wishes were thwarted now did duty in picturing the
incorrigible backslider who would insist upon turning
again to his wallowing in the mire.
The lineaments, as such, seemed to complain. They had
Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman |
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 Time Machine by H. G. Wells: brighter circle flickering in the blue.
`The landscape was misty and vague. I was still on the
hill-side upon which this house now stands, and the shoulder rose
above me grey and dim. I saw trees growing and changing like
puffs of vapour, now brown, now green; they grew, spread,
shivered, and passed away. I saw huge buildings rise up faint
and fair, and pass like dreams. The whole surface of the earth
seemed changed--melting and flowing under my eyes. The little
hands upon the dials that registered my speed raced round faster
and faster. Presently I noted that the sun belt swayed up and
down, from solstice to solstice, in a minute or less, and that
The Time Machine |
