| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Idylls of the King by Alfred Tennyson: To bitter weeping like a beaten child,
A long, long weeping, not consolable.
Then her false voice made way, broken with sobs:
'O crueller than was ever told in tale,
Or sung in song! O vainly lavished love!
O cruel, there was nothing wild or strange,
Or seeming shameful--for what shame in love,
So love be true, and not as yours is--nothing
Poor Vivien had not done to win his trust
Who called her what he called her--all her crime,
All--all--the wish to prove him wholly hers.'
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Charmides and Other Poems by Oscar Wilde: Against the rolling ship, the pilot cried
To the young helmsman at the stern to luff to windward side
But he, the overbold adulterer,
A dear profaner of great mysteries,
An ardent amorous idolater,
When he beheld those grand relentless eyes
Laughed loud for joy, and crying out 'I come'
Leapt from the lofty poop into the chill and churning foam.
Then fell from the high heaven one bright star,
One dancer left the circling galaxy,
And back to Athens on her clattering car
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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 Caesar's Commentaries in Latin by Julius Caesar: Horum adventu tanta rerum commutatio est facta ut nostri, etiam qui
vulneribus confecti procubuissent, scutis innixi proelium redintegrarent,
calones perterritos hostes conspicati etiam inermes armatis occurrerent,
equites vero, ut turpitudinem fugae virtute delerent, omnibus in locis
pugnae se legionariis militibus praeferrent. At hostes, etiam in extrema
spe salutis, tantam virtutem praestiterunt ut, cum primi eorum
cecidissent, proximi iacentibus insisterent atque ex eorum corporibus
pugnarent, his deiectis et coacervatis cadaveribus qui superessent ut ex
tumulo tela in nostros coicerent et pila intercepta remitterent: ut non
nequiquam tantae virtutis homines iudicari deberet ausos esse transire
latissimum flumen, ascendere altissimas ripas, subire iniquissimum locum;
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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 Virginian by Owen Wister: particulars."
"I know I'm white-livered," I said with a species of laugh. "I
never crowd and stare when somebody is hurt in the street. I get
away."
He thought this over. "You don't mean all of that. You'd not have
spoke just that way about crowding and staring if you thought
well of them that stare. Staring ain't courage; it's trashy
curiosity. Now you did not have this thing--"
He had stretched out his hand to point, but it fell, and his
utterance stopped, and he jerked his horse to a stand. My nerves
sprang like a wire at his suddenness, and I looked where he was
The Virginian |
