| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare: Shaking her wings, devouring all in haste,
Till either gorge be stuff'd or prey be gone;
Even so she kiss'd his brow, his cheek, his chin,
And where she ends she doth anew begin. 60
Forc'd to content, but never to obey,
Panting he lies, and breatheth in her face;
She feedeth on the steam, as on a prey,
And calls it heavenly moisture, air of grace; 64
Wishing her cheeks were gardens full of flowers
So they were dewd with such distilling showers.
Look! how a bird lies tangled in a net,
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair: Callahan, about whom the people of Packingtown spoke with bated breath.
"Pat" Callahan--"Growler" Pat, as he had been known before he
ascended the bench--had begun life as a butcher boy and a bruiser
of local reputation; he had gone into politics almost as soon as
he had learned to talk, and had held two offices at once before
he was old enough to vote. If Scully was the thumb, Pat Callahan
was the first finger of the unseen hand whereby the packers held
down the people of the district. No politician in Chicago ranked
higher in their confidence; he had been at it a long time--had been
the business agent in the city council of old Durham, the self-made
merchant, way back in the early days, when the whole city of Chicago
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Complete Angler by Izaak Walton: one with such red spots, and the other with such black or blackish
spots, as give them such an addition of natural beauty as, I think, was
never given to any woman by the artificial paint or patches in which
they so much pride themselves in this age. And so I shall leave them
both; and proceed to some observations of the Pike.
The fourth day - continued
On the Luce or Pike
Chapter VIII
Piscator and Venator
Piscator. The mighty Luce or Pike is taken to be the tyrant, as the
Salmon is the king, of the fresh water. 'Tis not to be doubted, but that
|
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 Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: court to give you audience.
A pebbly path, a low flight of stone steps, a pause to leave your
shoes without the sill, and you tread in the twilight of reverence
upon the moss-like mats within. The richness of its outer ornament,
so impressive at first, is, you discover, but prelude to the lavish
luxury of its interior. Lacquer, bronze, pigments, deck its ceiling
and its sides in such profusion that it seems to you as if art had
expanded, in the congenial atmosphere, into a tropical luxuriance of
decoration, and grew here as naturally on temples as in the jungle
creepers do on trees. Yet all is but setting to what the place
contains; objects of bigotry and virtue that appeal to the artistic
|
