| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Man against the Sky by Edwin Arlington Robinson: Beneath her beauty, blanched with pain,
And wistful yet for being cheated,
A child would seem to ask again
A question many times repeated;
But no rebellion has betrayed
Her wonder at what she has paid
For memories that have no stain,
For triumph born to be defeated.
To those who come for what she was --
The few left who know where to find her --
She clings, for they are all she has;
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen: you have had an agreeable ball."
"Very agreeable indeed," she replied,
vainly endeavouring to hide a great yawn.
"I wish she had been able to dance," said his wife;
"I wish we could have got a partner for her. I have been
saying how glad I should be if the Skinners were here this
winter instead of last; or if the Parrys had come, as they
talked of once, she might have danced with George Parry.
I am so sorry she has not had a partner!"
"We shall do better another evening I hope,"
was Mr. Allen's consolation.
Northanger Abbey |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Protagoras by Plato: art of government, they evil intreated one another, and were again in
process of dispersion and destruction. Zeus feared that the entire race
would be exterminated, and so he sent Hermes to them, bearing reverence and
justice to be the ordering principles of cities and the bonds of friendship
and conciliation. Hermes asked Zeus how he should impart justice and
reverence among men:--Should he distribute them as the arts are
distributed; that is to say, to a favoured few only, one skilled individual
having enough of medicine or of any other art for many unskilled ones?
'Shall this be the manner in which I am to distribute justice and reverence
among men, or shall I give them to all?' 'To all,' said Zeus; 'I should
like them all to have a share; for cities cannot exist, if a few only share
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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 Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson: Cairned with a wonder of flame, and blotting the night with smoke,
Blazed and were smelted together the bones of all his folk.
He fled unguided at first; but hearing the breakers roar,
Thitherward shaped his way, and came at length to the shore.
Sound-limbed he was: dry-eyed; but smarted in every part;
And the mighty cage of his ribs heaved on his straining heart
With sorrow and rage. And "Fools!" he cried, "fools of Vaiau,
Heads of swine - gluttons - Alas! and where are they now?
Those that I played with, those that nursed me, those that I nursed?
God, and I outliving them! I, the least and the worst -
I, that thought myself crafty, snared by this herd of swine,
Ballads |
