| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Children of the Night by Edwin Arlington Robinson: Oh, brother men, if you have eyes at all,
Look at a branch, a bird, a child, a rose, --
Or anything God ever made that grows, --
Nor let the smallest vision of it slip,
Till you can read, as on Belshazzar's wall,
The glory of eternal partnership!
Supremacy
There is a drear and lonely tract of hell
From all the common gloom removed afar:
A flat, sad land it is, where shadows are,
Whose lorn estate my verse may never tell.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: the streets only, but in private houses and families, great quantities of
coals were then burnt, even all the summer long and when the weather
was hottest, which was done by the advice of the physicians. Some
indeed opposed it, and insisted that to keep the houses and rooms hot
was a means to propagate the temper, which was a fermentation and
heat already in the blood; that it was known to spread and increase in
hot weather and abate in cold; and therefore they alleged that all
contagious distempers are the worse for heat, because the contagion
was nourished and gained strength in hot weather, and was, as it were,
propagated in heat.
Others said they granted that heat in the climate might propagate
A Journal of the Plague Year |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas: with you; and in virtue of that compact put to flight the police
who had arrested your wife, and has placed her beyond reach."
"Fortunately, Monsieur d'Artagnan is in our hands, and you shall
be confronted with him."
"By my faith, I ask no better," cried Bonacieux; "I shall not be
sorry to see the face of an acquaintance."
"Bring in the Monsieur d'Artagnan," said the commissary to the
guards. The two guards led in Athos.
"Monsieur d'Artagnan," said the commissary, addressing Athos,
"declare all that passed yesterday between you and Monsieur."
"But," cried Bonacieux, "this is not Monsieur d'Artagnan whom you
The Three Musketeers |
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 Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy: except that there was no moon."
"No moon--that's bad. Hey, neighbours, that's bad for him!"
"Yes, 'tis bad," said Grandfer Cantle, shaking his head.
"Mother know'd 'twas no moon, for she asked another
woman that had an almanac, as she did whenever a boy
was born to her, because of the saying, 'No moon,
no man,' which made her afeard every man-child she had.
Do ye really think it serious, Mister Fairway, that there
was no moon?"
"Yes. 'No moon, no man.' 'Tis one of the truest sayings
ever spit out. The boy never comes to anything that's
Return of the Native |
