| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Bride of Lammermoor by Walter Scott: Lord Marquis, your kinsman, if Mr. Ravenswood has the honour to
be so, has made the attempt privately to secure the
affections of this young and inexperienced girl. Sir William
Ashton, your daughter has been simple enough to give more
encouragement than she ought to have done to so very improper a
suitor."
"And I think, madam," said the Lord Keeper, losing his
accustomed temper and patience, "that if you had nothing better
to tell us, you had better have kept this family secret to
yourself also."
"You will pardon me, Sir William," said the lady, calmly; "the
The Bride of Lammermoor |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Altar of the Dead by Henry James: sense of them failed, all sound of them ceased, it was as if their
purgatory were really still on earth: they asked so little that
they got, poor things, even less, and died again, died every day,
of the hard usage of life. They had no organised service, no
reserved place, no honour, no shelter, no safety. Even ungenerous
people provided for the living, but even those who were called most
generous did nothing for the others. So on George Stransom's part
had grown up with the years a resolve that he at least would do
something, do it, that is, for his own - would perform the great
charity without reproach. Every man HAD his own, and every man
had, to meet this charity, the ample resources of the soul.
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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 Bucolics by Virgil: Soft chestnuts, and of curdled milk enow.
And, see, the farm-roof chimneys smoke afar,
And from the hills the shadows lengthening fall!
ECLOGUE II
ALEXIS
The shepherd Corydon with love was fired
For fair Alexis, his own master's joy:
No room for hope had he, yet, none the less,
The thick-leaved shadowy-soaring beech-tree grove
Still would he haunt, and there alone, as thus,
To woods and hills pour forth his artless strains.
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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 The Odyssey by Homer: the hero Laertes, against the day when the ruinous doom
shall bring him low, of death that lays men at their
length. So shall none of the Achaean women in the land
count it blame in me, as well might be, were he to lie
without a winding sheet, a man that had gotten great
possessions."
'So spake I, and their high hearts consented thereto. So
then in the daytime I would weave the mighty web, and in
the night unravel the same, when I had let place the
torches by me. Thus for the space of three years I hid the
thing by craft and beguiled the minds of the Achaeans. But
The Odyssey |
