| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Walden by Henry David Thoreau: refuses to serve in an unjust war by those who do not refuse to
sustain the unjust government which makes the war; is applauded by
those whose own act and authority he disregards and sets at naught;
as if the state were penitent to that degree that it hired one to
scourge it while it sinned, but not to that degree that it left off
sinning for a moment. Thus, under the name of Order and Civil
Government, we are all made at last to pay homage to and support our
own meanness. After the first blush of sin comes its indifference;
and from immoral it becomes, as it were, unmoral, and not quite
unnecessary to that life which we have made.
The broadest and most prevalent error requires the most
Walden |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from McTeague by Frank Norris: than old Zerkow, always nagging about money, money, and you
got five thousand dollars. You got more, an' you live in
that stinking hole of a room, and you won't drink any decent
beer. I ain't going to stand it much longer. She knew it
was going to rain. She KNEW it. Didn't I TELL her?
And she drives me out of my own home in the rain, for me to
get money for her; more money, and she takes it. She took
that money from me that I earned. 'Twasn't hers; it was
mine, I earned it--and not a nickel for car fare. She don't
care if I get wet and get a cold and DIE. No, she
don't, as long as she's warm and's got her money." He
McTeague |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A treatise on Good Works by Dr. Martin Luther: the children of Israel went out of Egypt through the Wilderness,
where there was no way, no food, no drink, no help. Therefore God
went before them, by day in a bright: cloud, by night in a fiery
pillar, fed them with manna from heaven, and kept their garments
and shoes that they waxed not old, as we read in the Books of
Moses. For this reason we pray: "Thy kingdom come, that Thou rule
us, and not: we ourselves," for there is nothing more perilous
in us than our reason and will. And this is the first and highest
work of God in us and the best training, that we cease from our
works, that we let our reason and will be idle, that we rest and
commend ourselves to God in all things, especially when they seem
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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 Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare: And all in haste she coasteth to the cry.
And as she runs, the bushes in the way
Some catch her by the neck, some kiss her face, 872
Some twine about her thigh to make her stay:
She wildly breaketh from their strict embrace,
Like a milch doe, whose swelling dugs do ache,
Hasting to feed her fawn hid in some brake. 876
By this she hears the hounds are at a bay;
Whereat she starts, like one that spies an adder
Wreath'd up in fatal folds just in his way,
The fear whereof doth make him shake and shudder;
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