| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: he took his seat again on the seat from which he had risen; and
Antinous rebuked him saying:
"Leiodes, what are you talking about? Your words are monstrous
and intolerable; it makes me angry to listen to you. Shall,
then, this bow take the life of many a chief among us, merely
because you cannot bend it yourself? True, you were not born to
be an archer, but there are others who will soon string it."
Then he said to Melanthius the goatherd, "Look sharp, light a
fire in the court, and set a seat hard by with a sheep skin on
it; bring us also a large ball of lard, from what they have in
the house. Let us warm the bow and grease it--we will then make
The Odyssey |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson: companion. Partly as we so sat, and partly afterwards, on the
way to Aucharn, each of us narrated his adventures; and I shall
here set down so much of Alan's as seems either curious or
needful.
It appears he ran to the bulwarks as soon as the wave was passed;
saw me, and lost me, and saw me again, as I tumbled in the roost;
and at last had one glimpse of me clinging on the yard. It was
this that put him in some hope I would maybe get to land after
all, and made him leave those clues and messages which had
brought me (for my sins) to that unlucky country of Appin.
In the meanwhile, those still on the brig had got the skiff
Kidnapped |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Aspern Papers by Henry James: she was the person to depart from an injunction so solemn.
"Oh, of course you will have to abide by the terms," I said;
and she uttered nothing to mitigate the severity of this conclusion.
Nonetheless, later, just before we disembarked at her own door,
on our return, which had taken place almost in silence,
she said to me abruptly, "I will do what I can to help you."
I was grateful for this--it was very well so far as it went;
but it did not keep me from remembering that night in a worried
waking hour that I now had her word for it to reinforce my own
impression that the old woman was very cunning.
VII
|
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 Middlemarch by George Eliot: was comparatively modest; but the ease with which a medical man
who had lately bought a practice, who thought that he was obliged
to keep two horses, whose table was supplied without stint, and who
paid an insurance on his life and a high rent for house and garden,
might find his expenses doubling his receipts, can be conceived by
any one who does not think these details beneath his consideration.
Rosamond, accustomed from her to an extravagant household,
thought that good housekeeping consisted simply in ordering the
best of everything--nothing else "answered;" and Lydgate supposed
that "if things were done at all, they must be done properly"--
he did not see how they were to live otherwise. If each head
Middlemarch |
