| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: five thousand leagues distance, in another reign, be applied to
any of the YAHOOS, who now are said to govern the herd;
especially at a time when I little thought, or feared, the
unhappiness of living under them? Have not I the most reason to
complain, when I see these very YAHOOS carried by HOUYHNHNMS in a
vehicle, as if they were brutes, and those the rational
creatures? And indeed to avoid so monstrous and detestable a
sight was one principal motive of my retirement hither.
Thus much I thought proper to tell you in relation to yourself,
and to the trust I reposed in you.
I do, in the next place, complain of my own great want of
Gulliver's Travels |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Buttered Side Down by Edna Ferber: diners for whom food was provided that night, the big, busy kitchen
was the most orderly, shining, spotless place imaginable. But Miss
Gussie Fink was the neatest, most immaculate object in all that
great, clean room. There was that about her which suggested
daisies in a field, if you know what I mean. This may have been
due to the fact that her eyes were brown while her hair was gold,
or it may have been something about the way her collars fitted
high, and tight, and smooth, or the way her close white sleeves
came down to meet her pretty hands, or the way her shining hair
sprang from her forehead. Also the smooth creaminess of her clear
skin may have had something to do with it. But privately, I think
Buttered Side Down |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Aeneid by Virgil: The foll'wing night, and the succeeding day,
Propitious Tiber smooth'd his wat'ry way:
He roll'd his river back, and pois'd he stood,
A gentle swelling, and a peaceful flood.
The Trojans mount their ships; they put from shore,
Borne on the waves, and scarcely dip an oar.
Shouts from the land give omen to their course,
And the pitch'd vessels glide with easy force.
The woods and waters wonder at the gleam
Of shields, and painted ships that stem the stream.
One summer's night and one whole day they pass
Aeneid |
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 Adam Bede by George Eliot: laughter--but if you look with a too curious sacrilegious eye,
they vanish behind the silvery beeches, they make you believe that
their voice was only a running brooklet, perhaps they metamorphose
themselves into a tawny squirrel that scampers away and mocks you
from the topmost bough. It was not a grove with measured grass or
rolled gravel for you to tread upon, but with narrow, hollow-
shaped, earthy paths, edged with faint dashes of delicate moss--
paths which look as if they were made by the free will of the
trees and underwood, moving reverently aside to look at the tall
queen of the white-footed nymphs.
It was along the broadest of these paths that Arthur Donnithorne
Adam Bede |
