| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: wish for anything more. And then she fell in love.
She fell in love silently, obstinately--perhaps help-
lessly. It came slowly, but when it came it worked
like a powerful spell; it was love as the Ancients
understood it: an irresistible and fateful impulse--
a possession! Yes, it was in her to become haunted
and possessed by a face, by a presence, fatally, as
though she had been a pagan worshipper of form
under a joyous sky--and to be awakened at last
from that mysterious forgetfulness of self, from
that enchantment, from that transport, by a
Amy Foster |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Grimm's Fairy Tales by Brothers Grimm: old woman looking out, with such large teeth, that she was terrified,
and turned to run away. But the old woman called after her, 'What are
you afraid of, dear child? Stay with me; if you will do the work of my
house properly for me, I will make you very happy. You must be very
careful, however, to make my bed in the right way, for I wish you
always to shake it thoroughly, so that the feathers fly about; then
they say, down there in the world, that it is snowing; for I am Mother
Holle.' The old woman spoke so kindly, that the girl summoned up
courage and agreed to enter into her service.
She took care to do everything according to the old woman's bidding
and every time she made the bed she shook it with all her might, so
Grimm's Fairy Tales |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: so long as they are alive, and speak contemptuously of them when
they are dead, but he that is righteous and deals righteously,
the people tell of his praise among all lands, and many shall
call him blessed."
Ulysses answered, "Madam, I have foresworn rugs and blankets
from the day that I left the snowy ranges of Crete to go on
shipboard. I will lie as I have lain on many a sleepless night
hitherto. Night after night have I passed in any rough sleeping
place, and waited for morning. Nor, again, do I like having my
feet washed; I shall not let any of the young hussies about your
house touch my feet; but, if you have any old and respectable
The Odyssey |
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 Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte by Karl Marx: traveling princesses, but as the bourgeois class against the other
classes; not as royalists against republicans. Indeed, as party of
Order they exercised a more unlimited and harder dominion over the other
classes of society than ever before either under the restoration or the
July monarchy-a thing possible only under the form of a parliamentary
republic, because under this form alone could the two large divisions of
the French bourgeoisie be united; in other words, only under this form
could they place on the order of business the sovereignty of their
class, in lieu of the regime of a privileged faction of the same. If,
this notwithstanding, they are seen as the party of Order to insult the
republic and express their antipathy for it, it happened not out of
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