| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tales and Fantasies by Robert Louis Stevenson: sense of unpardonable injustice remained graven in his
memory.
CHAPTER III - IN THE ADMIRAL'S NAME
THERE was no return to the subject. Dick and his father were
henceforth on terms of coldness. The upright old gentleman
grew more upright when he met his son, buckrammed with
immortal anger; he asked after Dick's health, and discussed
the weather and the crops with an appalling courtesy; his
pronunciation was POINT-DE-VICE, his voice was distant,
distinct, and sometimes almost trembling with suppressed
indignation.
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic: would be back again, though, in a quarter of an hour or so,
the boy said, and the minister at once decided to wait.
Theron was interested in finding that this office-boy was no
other than Harvey--the lad who brought milk to the parsonage
every morning. He remembered now that he had heard good
things of this urchin, as to the hard work he did to help
his mother, the Widow Semple, in her struggle to keep
a roof over her head; and also bad things, in that he did
not come regularly either to church or Sunday-school. The
clergyman recalled, too, that Harvey had impressed him as a character.
"Well, sonny, are you going to be a lawyer?" he asked,
The Damnation of Theron Ware |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) by Dante Alighieri: Who made upon the highways so much war."
Then back he turned, and passed again the ford.
Inferno: Canto XIII
Not yet had Nessus reached the other side,
When we had put ourselves within a wood,
That was not marked by any path whatever.
Not foliage green, but of a dusky colour,
Not branches smooth, but gnarled and intertangled,
Not apple-trees were there, but thorns with poison.
Such tangled thickets have not, nor so dense,
Those savage wild beasts, that in hatred hold
The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) |
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 My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass: Rain or shine, however, work or no work, at the end of each week
the money must be forthcoming.
Master Hugh seemed to be very much pleased, for a time, with this
arrangement; and well he might be, for it was decidedly in his
favor. It relieved him of all anxiety concerning me. His money
was sure. He had armed my love of liberty with a lash and a
driver, far more efficient than any I had before known; and,
while he derived all the benefits of slaveholding by the
arrangement, without its evils, I endured all the evils of being
a slave, and yet suffered all the care and anxiety of a
responsible freeman. "Nevertheless," thought I, "it is a
My Bondage and My Freedom |
