| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Dust by Mr. And Mrs. Haldeman-Julius: around Norah. Rose had inherited her mother's charm. Such women
were a race apart. They could no more be held responsible for
trying to please than a flower for exhaling its fragrance. At
what a lovely moment of life she was! Small wonder that Martin
was captivated, but not even the shadow of harm must fall on that
fresh young spirit while she was under their roof. If things went
much further she would have it out with him. And this decision
reached, Mrs. Wade felt her usual composure gradually return, nor
did it again desert her during the long evening through which it
seemed to her as if her husband must be some stranger.
VII
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: speaking. It is the instinctive and necessary result of power,
which can only be developed through the mind of successive
generations, and which finally burst into life under social
conditions as slow of growth as the faculties they regulate. Whole
aeras of mighty history are summed, and the passions of dead myriads
are concentrated, in the existence of a noble art, and if that noble
art were among us, we should feel it and rejoice; not caring in the
least to hear lectures on it; and since it is not among us, be
assured we have to go back to the root of it, or, at least, to the
place where the stock of it is yet alive, and the branches began to
die.
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy: more, but he waited and did nothing.
Suddenly she jumped up onto a tub to be higher than he, embraced him
so that both her slender bare arms clasped him above his neck, and,
tossing back her hair, kissed him full on the lips.
Then she slipped down among the flowerpots on the other side of
the tubs and stood, hanging her head.
"Natasha," he said, "you know that I love you, but..."
"You are in love with me?" Natasha broke in.
"Yes, I am, but please don't let us do like that.... In another four
years... then I will ask for your hand."
Natasha considered.
War and Peace |
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 Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln: But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate. . .we cannot consecrate. . .
we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead,
who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power
to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember,
what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished
work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining
before us. . .that from these honored dead we take increased devotion
to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion. . .
that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain. . .
|
