| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The House of Dust by Conrad Aiken: No, I shall not say why it is that I love you--
Why do you ask me, save for vanity?
Surely you would not have me, like a mirror,
Say 'yes,--your hair curls darkly back from the temples,
Your mouth has a humorous, tremulous, half-shy sweetness,
Your eyes are April grey. . . .with jonquils in them?'
No, if I tell at all, I shall tell in silence . . .
I'll say--my childhood broke through chords of music
--Or were they chords of sun?--wherein fell shadows,
Or silences; I rose through seas of sunlight;
Or sometimes found a darkness stooped above me
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: carried off every night, so that it was never to be said of London that
the living were not able to bury the dead.
As the desolation was greater during those terrible times, so the
amazement of the people increased, and a thousand unaccountable
things they would do in the violence of their fright, as others did the
same in the agonies of their distemper, and this part was very
affecting. Some went roaring and crying and wringing their hands
along the street; some would go praying and lifting up their hands to
heaven, calling upon God for mercy. I cannot say, indeed, whether
this was not in their distraction, but, be it so, it was still an indication
of a more serious mind, when they had the use of their senses, and
A Journal of the Plague Year |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Mosses From An Old Manse by Nathaniel Hawthorne: town. Mother Rigby stood at the threshold, well pleased to see
how the sunbeams glistened on him, as if all his magnificence
were real, and how diligently and lovingly he smoked his pipe,
and how handsomely he walked, in spite of a little stiffness of
his legs. She watched him until out of sight, and threw a witch
benediction after her darling, when a turn of the road snatched
him from her view.
Betimes in the forenoon, when the principal street of the
neighboring town was just at its acme of life and bustle, a
stranger of very distinguished figure was seen on the sidewalk.
His port as well as his garments betokened nothing short of
Mosses From An Old Manse |
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 Dream Life and Real Life by Olive Schreiner: it seemed as though she were standing quite alone. She looked up: on one
side of her was the high precipice, on the other was the river, with the
willow trees, drooping their branches into the water; and the moonlight was
over all. Up, against the night sky the pointed leaves of the kippersol
trees were clearly marked, and the rocks and the willow trees cast dark
shadows.
In her sleep she shivered, and half awoke.
"Ah, I am not there, I am here," she said; and she crept closer to the
rock, and kissed it, and went to sleep again.
It must have been about three o'clock, for the moon had begun to sink
towards the western sky, when she woke, with a violent start. She sat up,
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