| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Margret Howth: A Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis: better for her, so she did not care. She finished soon: they had
given her only an hour or two's work for the first day. She
closed the books, wiped the pens in a quaint, mechanical fashion,
then got down and examined her new home.
It was soon understood. There were the walls with their broken
plaster, showing the laths underneath, with here and there, over
them, sketches with burnt coal, showing that her predecessor had
been an artist in his way,--his name, P. Teagarden, emblazoned on
the ceiling with the smoke of a candle; heaps of hanks of yarn in
the dusty corners; a half-used broom; other heaps of yarn on the
old toppling desk covered with dust; a raisin-box, with P.
Margret Howth: A Story of To-day |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad: in the Island of Celebes, when the Rajah of that little-known
seaport (you can get no anchorage there in less than fifteen
fathom, which is extremely inconvenient) came on board in a
friendly way, with only two attendants, and drank bottle after
bottle of soda-water on the after-sky light with my good friend
and commander, Captain C----. At least I heard his name
distinctly pronounced several times in a lot of talk in Malay
language. Oh, yes, I heard it quite distinctly--Almayer,
Almayer--and saw Captain C---- smile, while the fat, dingy Rajah
laughed audibly. To hear a Malay Rajah laugh outright is a rare
experience, I can as sure you. And I overheard more of Almayer's
A Personal Record |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: Now actions vary according to the manner of their performance. Take, for
example, that which we are now doing, drinking, singing and talking--these
actions are not in themselves either good or evil, but they turn out in
this or that way according to the mode of performing them; and when well
done they are good, and when wrongly done they are evil; and in like manner
not every love, but only that which has a noble purpose, is noble and
worthy of praise. The Love who is the offspring of the common Aphrodite is
essentially common, and has no discrimination, being such as the meaner
sort of men feel, and is apt to be of women as well as of youths, and is of
the body rather than of the soul--the most foolish beings are the objects
of this love which desires only to gain an end, but never thinks of
|
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 Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: "No," I said, "it is not she."
I was stupefied with grief. I left the grounds by the little gate of
the lower terrace and went to the punt, in which I hid to be alone
with my thoughts. I tried to detach myself from the being in which I
lived,--a torture like that with which the Tartars punish adultery by
fastening a limb of the guilty man in a piece of wood and leaving him
with a knife to cut it off if he would not die of hunger. My life was
a failure, too! Despair suggested many strange ideas to me. Sometimes
I vowed to die beside her; sometimes to bury myself at Meilleraye
among the Trappists. I looked at the windows of the room where
Henriette was dying, fancying I saw the light that was burning there
The Lily of the Valley |
