| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Crowd by Gustave le Bon: mind of crowds. The conciser an affirmation is, the more
destitute of every appearance of proof and demonstration, the
more weight it carries. The religious books and the legal codes
of all ages have always resorted to simple affirmation.
Statesmen called upon to defend a political cause, and commercial
men pushing the sale of their products by means of advertising
are acquainted with the value of affirmation.
Affirmation, however, has no real influence unless it be
constantly repeated, and so far as possible in the same terms.
It was Napoleon, I believe, who said that there is only one
figure in rhetoric of serious importance, namely, repetition.
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tales of the Klondyke by Jack London: just clearing a rise, barely a mile away, and the dogs were in
full lope, running lightly.
"'Ow close is the shadows to the line?"
Kent walked to the primitive timepiece and studied it. "Three
inches," he announced, after a careful survey.
"Say, jes' sing out 'eight bells' afore you pull the gun, will
you?"
Kent agreed, and they lapsed into silence. The thongs about
Cardegee's wrists were slowly stretching, and he had begun to work
them over his hands.
"Say, 'ow close is the shadows?"
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: fingers, pecked at her lips, clung to her shawl, and when she rocked
her head to and fro like a nurse, the big wings of her cap and the
wings of the bird flapped in unison. When clouds gathered on the
horizon and the thunder rumbled, Loulou would scream, perhaps because
he remembered the storms in his native forests. The dripping of the
rain would excite him to frenzy; he flapped around, struck the ceiling
with his wings, upset everything, and would finally fly into the
garden to play. Then he would come back into the room, light on one of
the andirons, and hop around in order to get dry.
One morning during the terrible winter of 1837, when she had put him
in front of the fire-place on account of the cold, she found him dead
A Simple Soul |
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 Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) by Dante Alighieri: Or ere another, circling, compass'd it,
Motion to motion, song to song, conjoining,
Song, that as much our muses doth excel,
Our Sirens with their tuneful pipes, as ray
Of primal splendour doth its faint reflex.
As when, if Juno bid her handmaid forth,
Two arches parallel, and trick'd alike,
Span the thin cloud, the outer taking birth
From that within (in manner of that voice
Whom love did melt away, as sun the mist),
And they who gaze, presageful call to mind
The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) |
