| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Three Taverns by Edwin Arlington Robinson: "We are false and evanescent, and aware of our deceit,
From the straw that is our vitals to the clay that is our feet.
You may serve us if you must, and you shall have your wage of ashes, --
Though arrears due thereafter may be hard for you to meet.
"You may swear that we are solid, you may say that we are strong,
But we know that we are neither and we say that you are wrong;
You may find an easy worship in acclaiming our indulgence,
But your large admiration of us now is not for long.
"If your doom is to adore us with a doubt that's never still,
And you pray to see our faces -- pray in earnest, and you will.
You may gaze at us and live, and live assured of our confusion:
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Manon Lescaut by Abbe Prevost: thousand drawbacks, or is, more properly speaking, but a tissue
of sufferings through which one hopes to attain felicity. If by
the power of imagination one can even derive pleasure from these
sufferings, hoping that they may lead to a happy end, why, let me
ask, do you deem my conduct senseless, when it is directed by
precisely the same principle? I love Manon: I wade through
sorrow and suffering in order to attain happiness with her. My
path is one indeed of difficulties, but the mere hope of reaching
the desired goal makes it easy and delightful; and I shall think
myself but too bountifully repaid by one moment of her society,
for all the troubles I encounter in my course. There appears
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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 The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers by Jonathan Swift: Biquerstaffe: But how far a Frenchman, a papist, and an enemy is
to be believed in his own case against an English Protestant, who
is true to his government, I shall leave to the candid and
impartial reader.
The other objection is the unhappy occasion of this discourse,
and relates to an article in my predictions, which foretold the
death of Mr. Partridge, to happen on March 29, 1708. This he is
pleased to contradict absolutely in the almanack he has published
for the present year, and in that ungentlemanly manner (pardon
the expression) as I have above related. In that work he very
roundly asserts, That he is not only now alive, but was likewise
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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 My Antonia by Willa Cather: Without a word Peter got up and lit his lantern. He was going
out to get his team to drive us home. Mr. Shimerda went with him.
We sat and watched the long bowed back under the blue sheet,
scarcely daring to breathe.
On the way home, when we were lying in the straw, under the jolting
and rattling Antonia told me as much of the story as she could.
What she did not tell me then, she told later; we talked of nothing
else for days afterward.
When Pavel and Peter were young men, living at home in Russia,
they were asked to be groomsmen for a friend who was to marry
the belle of another village. It was in the dead of winter
My Antonia |
