| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy: out of your job as they did at Aldbrickham!"
"I hardly know. Perhaps they would hardly do that. However, I think
that we ought to make it legal now--as soon as you are able to go out."
"You think we ought?"
"Certainly."
And Jude fell into thought. "I have seemed to myself lately,"
he said, "to belong to that vast band of men shunned by the virtuous--
the men called seducers. It amazes me when I think of it!
I have not been conscious of it, or of any wrongdoing towards you,
whom I love more than myself. Yet I am one of those men!
I wonder if any other of them are the same purblind,
Jude the Obscure |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield: squarely in front of her. He unbuttoned his greatcoat and drew a slip of
paper from the breast pocket, smoothing it in his gloved fingers before
handing it to her.
"Yes, that's the address, right enough, but there must be a mistake in the
number. So many lodging-houses in this street, you know, and so big."
Drops of water fell from her hair on to the paper. She burst out laughing.
"Oh, HOW dreadful I must look--one moment!" She ran back to the washstand
and caught up a towel. The door was still open...After all, there was
nothing more to be said. Why on earth had she asked him to wait a moment?
She folded the towel round her shoulders, and returned to the door,
suddenly grave. "I'm sorry; I know no such name" in a sharp voice.
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Laches by Plato: SOCRATES: Nor the wisdom which plays the lyre?
NICIAS: No.
SOCRATES: But what is this knowledge then, and of what?
LACHES: I think that you put the question to him very well, Socrates; and
I would like him to say what is the nature of this knowledge or wisdom.
NICIAS: I mean to say, Laches, that courage is the knowledge of that which
inspires fear or confidence in war, or in anything.
LACHES: How strangely he is talking, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Why do you say so, Laches?
LACHES: Why, surely courage is one thing, and wisdom another.
SOCRATES: That is just what Nicias denies.
|
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 King Lear by William Shakespeare: But other of your insolent retinue
Do hourly carp and quarrel, breaking forth
In rank and not-to-be-endured riots. Sir,
I had thought, by making this well known unto you,
To have found a safe redress, but now grow fearful,
By what yourself, too, late have spoke and done,
That you protect this course, and put it on
By your allowance; which if you should, the fault
Would not scape censure, nor the redresses sleep,
Which, in the tender of a wholesome weal,
Might in their working do you that offence
King Lear |
