| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: I told her how I had stopped off in Chicago for a day on my way East,
and how a dozen people had sent their love through me.
"Do they miss me?" she cried ecstatically.
"The whole town is desolate. All the cars have the left rear wheel
painted black as a mourning wreath, and there's a persistent wail all
night along the north shore."
"How gorgeous! Let's go back, Tom. To-morrow!" Then she added
irrelevantly: "You ought to see the baby."
"I'd like to."
"She's asleep. She's three years old. Haven't you ever seen her?"
"Never."
The Great Gatsby |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom by William and Ellen Craft: bliss, "where the wicked cease from troubling, and
the weary are at rest."
Antoinette like many other noble women who
are deprived of liberty, still
"Holds something sacred, something undefiled;
Some pledge and keepsake of their higher nature.
And, like the diamond in the dark, retains
Some quenchless gleam of the celestial light."
On Hoskens fully realizing the fact that his
victim was no more, he exclaimed "By thunder I
am a used-up man!" The sudden disappointment,
Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: an inconsistency: for should not Socrates too have taught the citizens
better than to put him to death?
And now, as he himself says, we will 'resume the argument from the
beginning.'
Socrates, who is attended by his inseparable disciple, Chaerephon, meets
Callicles in the streets of Athens. He is informed that he has just missed
an exhibition of Gorgias, which he regrets, because he was desirous, not of
hearing Gorgias display his rhetoric, but of interrogating him concerning
the nature of his art. Callicles proposes that they shall go with him to
his own house, where Gorgias is staying. There they find the great
rhetorician and his younger friend and disciple Polus.
|
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 Camille by Alexandre Dumas: the inspector. "Is this gentleman's presence still necessary?" I
said, pointing to Armand.
"No," he replied, "and I should advise you to take him away. He
looks ill."
"Come," I said to Armand, taking him by the arm.
"What?" he said, looking at me as if he did not recognise me.
"It is all over," I added. "You must come, my friend; you are
quite white; you are cold. These emotions will be too much for
you."
"You are right. Let us go," he answered mechanically, but without
moving a step.
Camille |
