| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Poems of William Blake by William Blake: To fade away like morning beauty from her mortal day:
Down by the river of Adona her soft voice is heard;
And thus her gentle lamentation falls like morning dew.
O life of this our spring! why fades the lotus of the water?
Why fade these children of the spring? born but to smile & fall.
Ah! Thel is like a watry bow, and like a parting cloud,
Like a reflection in a glass: like shadows in the water
Like dreams of infants, like a smile upon an infants face.
Like the doves voice, like transient day, like music in the air:
Ah! gentle may I lay me down and gentle rest my head.
And gentle sleep the sleep of death, and gently hear the voice
Poems of William Blake |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Moon-Face and Other Stories by Jack London: striking likeness, and unmistakable, with phrases tripping along like this:
'This crook-nosed, gross-bodied harpy'; 'this civic sinner, this judicial
highwayman'; 'possessing the morals of the Tenderloin and an honor which
thieves' honor puts to shame'; 'who compounds criminality with shyster-sharks,
and in atonement railroads the unfortunate and impecunious to rotting
cells,'--and so forth and so forth, style sophomoric and devoid of the dignity
and tone one would employ in a dissertation on 'Surplus Value,' or 'The
Fallacies of Marxism,' but just the stuff the dear public likes.
"'Humph!' grunted Spargo when I put the copy in his fist. 'Swift gait you
strike, my man.'
"I fixed a hypnotic eye on his vest pocket, and he passed out one of his
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Options by O. Henry: a Shoulder. There were few truer collar-bones anywhere than hers.
Hetty was only thirty-three, and she had not yet outlived the little
pang that visited her whenever the head of youth and beauty leaned
upon her for consolation. But one glance in her mirror always served
as an instantaneous pain-killer. So she gave one pale look into the
crinkly old looking-glass on the wall above the gas-stove, turned down
the flame a little lower from the bubbling beef and potatoes, went
over to the couch, and lifted Cecilia's head to its confessional.
"Go on and tell me, honey," she said. "I know now that it ain't art
that's worrying you. You met him on a ferry-boat, didn't you? Go on,
Cecilia, kid, and tell your--your Aunt Hetty about it."
Options |
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 Egmont by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe: shudder runs through my frame. Yes, it prevails, this treacherous power; it
undermines the firm, the lofty stem, and ere the bark withers, thy verdant
crown falls crashing to the earth.
Yet wherefore now, thou who hast so often chased the weightiest cares
like bubbles from thy brow, wherefore canst thou not dissipate this dire
foreboding which incessantly haunts thee in a thousand different shapes?
Since when hast thou trembled at the approach of death, amid whose
varying forms, thou weft wont calmly to dwell, as with the other shapes of
this familiar earth. But 'tis not he, the sudden foe, to encounter whom the
sound bosom emulously pants;---'tis the dungeon, emblem of the grave,
revolting alike to the hero and the coward. How intolerable I used to feel
Egmont |
