| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Songs of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: If still in my veins the glee
Of the black night and the sun
And the lost battle, run:
If, an adept,
The iniquitous lists I still accept
With joy, and joy to endure and be withstood,
And still to battle and perish for a dream of good:
God, if that were enough?
If to feel, in the ink of the slough,
And the sink of the mire,
Veins of glory and fire
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Burning Daylight by Jack London: poker on a larger scale. The men who played were the men who had
stakes. The workers were the fellows toiling for grubstakes. He
saw the game played out according to the everlasting rules, and
he played a hand himself. The gigantic futility of humanity
organized and befuddled by the bandits did not shock him. It was
the natural order. Practically all human endeavors were futile.
He had seen so much of it. His partners had starved and died on
the Stewart. Hundreds of old-timers had failed to locate on
Bonanza and Eldorado, while Swedes and chechaquos had come in
on the moose-pasture and blindly staked millions. It was life,
and life was a savage proposition at best. Men in civilization
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Lover's Complaint by William Shakespeare: Did livery falseness in a pride of truth.
'Well could he ride, and often men would say
That horse his mettle from his rider takes:
Proud of subjection, noble by the sway,
What rounds, what bounds, what course, what stop he makes!
And controversy hence a question takes,
Whether the horse by him became his deed,
Or he his manage by the well-doing steed.
'But quickly on this side the verdict went;
His real habitude gave life and grace
To appertainings and to ornament,
|
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 Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: of his plate, he hastened to restore his mouth to its original
expression, and fell tearfully to gnawing a mutton bone--the grease
from which had soon covered his cheeks.
Every now and again the hostess would turn to Chichikov with the
words, "You are eating nothing--you have indeed taken little;" but
invariably her guest replied: "Thank you, I have had more than enough.
A pleasant conversation is worth all the dishes in the world."
At length the company rose from table. Manilov was in high spirits,
and, laying his hand upon his guest's shoulder, was on the point of
conducting him to the drawing-room, when suddenly Chichikov intimated
to him, with a meaning look, that he wished to speak to him on a very
Dead Souls |
