| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Common Sense by Thomas Paine: come under the head I first set out with, and to which I again return
by the following position, viz.
Should affairs he patched up with Britain, and she to remain the governing
and sovereign power of America, (which, as matters are now circumstanced,
is giving up the point entirely) we shall deprive ourselves of the very means
of sinking the debt we have, or may contract. The value of the back lands
which some of the provinces are clandestinely deprived of, by the unjust
extension of the limits of Canada, valued only at five pounds sterling
per hundred acres, amount to upwards of twenty-five millions,
Pennsylvania currency; and the quit-rents at one penny sterling per acre,
to two millions yearly.
Common Sense |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Golden Threshold by Sarojini Naidu: Thy Future calls thee with a manifold sound
To crescent honours, splendours, victories vast;
Waken, O slumbering Mother and be crowned,
Who once wert empress of the sovereign Past.
THE ROYAL TOMBS OF GOLCONDA
I muse among these silent fanes
Whose spacious darkness guards your dust;
Around me sleep the hoary plains
That hold your ancient wars in trust.
I pause, my dreaming spirit hears,
Across the wind's unquiet tides,
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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 Moby Dick by Herman Melville: hugged me tightly, as though naught but death should part us twain.
I now strove to rouse him--"Queequeg!"--but his only answer was a
snore. I then rolled over, my neck feeling as if it were in a
horse-collar; and suddenly felt a slight scratch. Throwing aside the
counterpane, there lay the tomahawk sleeping by the savage's side, as
if it were a hatchet-faced baby. A pretty pickle, truly, thought I;
abed here in a strange house in the broad day, with a cannibal and a
tomahawk! "Queequeg!--in the name of goodness, Queequeg, wake!" At
length, by dint of much wriggling, and loud and incessant
expostulations upon the unbecomingness of his hugging a fellow male
in that matrimonial sort of style, I succeeded in extracting a grunt;
Moby Dick |
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 Helen of Troy And Other Poems by Sara Teasdale: I loved too much to live. Go Sappho, go --
I hate your hands that beat so full of life,
Go, lest my hatred hurt you. I shall die,
But you will live to love and love again.
He might have loved some other spring than this;
I should have kept my life -- I let it go.
He would not love me now tho' Cypris bound
Her girdle round me. I am Death's, not Love's.
Go from me, Sappho, back to find the sun.
I am alone, alone. O Cyprian . . .
Love Songs
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