| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare: Their sense thus weake, lost with their feares thus strong,
Made senslesse things begin to do them wrong.
For briars and thornes at their apparell snatch,
Some sleeues, some hats, from yeelders all things catch,
I led them on in this distracted feare,
And left sweete Piramus translated there:
When in that moment (so it came to passe)
Tytania waked, and straightway lou'd an Asse
Ob. This fals out better then I could deuise:
But hast thou yet lacht the Athenians eyes,
With the loue iuyce, as I bid thee doe?
A Midsummer Night's Dream |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Iron Puddler by James J. Davis: I began footing it thirty-five miles to the city. I decided,
like Queen Isabella, to pawn my jewels to enable me to discover
America again. I had an old ring and I met a darky who had a
quarter. He got my ring. After tramping all day I was exhausted.
I came to a negro cabin and went in and offered the "mammy" a
pound of bacon for a pound of corn pone. I further bargained to
give the first half of my other pound of bacon if she'd cook the
second half for me to eat. She cooked my share of the bacon and
set it and the corn bread on the table. I ate heartily for a
while, but after two or three slices of the bacon, I was fed up
on it. She hadn't cooked enough of the grease out of it. I began
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Selected Writings of Guy De Maupassant by Guy De Maupassant: "I was under the charm of her enigmatical and mocking smile, that
smile in which her teeth gleamed cruelly between her red lips,
and glistened as if they were ready to bite and to heighten the
pleasure of the most delightful, the most voluptuous, kiss by
pain.
"I loved everything in her--her feline suppleness, her languid
looks which emerged from her half-closed lids, full of promises
and temptation, her somewhat extreme elegance, and her hands,
those long, delicate white hands, with blue veins, like the
bloodless hands of a female saint in a stained glass window, and
her slender fingers, on which only the large blood-drop of a ruby
|
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: expense for materials. So, when the workmen were gone, he sat
down, took out his pocket-book, and busied himself with sketching
a plan, and making a specification of the expenses that he might
show it to Burge the next morning, and set him on persuading the
squire to consent. To "make a good job" of anything, however
small, was always a pleasure to Adam, and he sat on a block, with
his book resting on a planing-table, whistling low every now and
then and turning his head on one side with a just perceptible
smile of gratification--of pride, too, for if Adam loved a bit of
good work, he loved also to think, "I did it!" And I believe the
only people who are free from that weakness are those who have no
Adam Bede |
