| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Complete Angler by Izaak Walton: The FIFTH day-continued
Chapter XXI
Piscator and Venator
Piscator. Well, Scholar, I have held you too long about these cadis, and
smaller fish, and rivers, and fish-ponds; and my spirits are almost spent,
and so I doubt is your patience; but being we are now almost at
Tottenham where I first met you, and where we are to part, I will lose
no time, but give you a little direction how to make and order your
lines, and to colour the hair of which you make your lines, for that is
very needful to be known of an angler; and also how to paint your rod,
especially your top; for a right-grown top is a choice commodity, and
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from New Arabian Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson: than the events themselves. Two forms of experience were thus
brought together and laid before the young clergyman; and he did
not know which to admire the most - the desperate actor or the
skilled expert in life; the man who spoke boldly of his own deeds
and perils, or the man who seemed, like a god, to know all things
and to have suffered nothing. The manner of each aptly fitted with
his part in the discourse. The Dictator indulged in brutalities
alike of speech and gesture; his hand opened and shut and fell
roughly on the table; and his voice was loud and heavy. The
Prince, on the other hand, seemed the very type of urbane docility
and quiet; the least movement, the least inflection, had with him a
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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 The Mucker by Edgar Rice Burroughs: Eddie approached the door and listened.
"Wot do you want?" he asked. "None o' your funny
business, you know. I'm from Shawnee, Kansas, I am, an'
they don't come no slicker from nowhere on earth. You
can't fool me."
Shawnee, Kansas! Eddie Shorter! The whole puzzle was
cleared in Billy's mind in an instant.
"So you're Eddie Shorter of Shawnee, Kansas, are you?"
called Billy. "Well I know your maw, Eddie, an' ef I had such
a maw as you got I wouldn't be down here wastin' my time
workin' alongside a lot of Dagos; but that ain't what I started
The Mucker |
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 Poems of William Blake by William Blake: She bowd over the weeping infant, and her life exhald
In milky fondness, then on Thel she fix'd her humble eyes
O beauty of the vales of Har, we live not for ourselves,
Thou seest me the meanest thing, and so I am indeed:
My bosom of itself is cold, and of itself is dark,
But he that loves the lowly, pours his oil upon my head
And kisses me, and binds his nuptial bands around my breast.
And says; Thou mother of my children, I have loved thee
And I have given thee a crown that none can take away.
But how this is sweet maid, I know not, and I cannot know
I ponder, and I cannot ponder; yet I live and love.
Poems of William Blake |
