| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: tribe. The press, handled in this sort, creaked aloud in such fine
style that you might have thought some bird had dashed itself against
the window pane and flown away again.
"Where is the English press that could go at that pace?" the parent
asked of his astonished son.
Old Sechard hurried to the second, and then to the third in order,
repeating the manoeuvre with equal dexterity. The third presenting to
his wine-troubled eye a patch overlooked by the apprentice, with a
notable oath he rubbed it with the skirt of his overcoat, much as a
horse-dealer polishes the coat of an animal that he is trying to sell.
"With those three presses, David, you can make your nine thousand
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Just Folks by Edgar A. Guest: Your first wee steps, entranced.
You gooed and gurgled as you came
Without a sign of fear;
As though you knew, your journey o'er,
I'd greet you with a cheer.
And, what is more, you seemed to know,
Although you are so small,
That I was there, with eager arms,
To save you from a fall.
Three tiny steps you took, and then,
Disaster and dismay!
Just Folks |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift: it will have one other collateral advantage, by lessening the
number of Papists among us.
I have already computed the charge of nursing a beggar's child
(in which list I reckon all cottagers, labourers, and four-fifths
of the farmers) to be about two shillings per annum, rags
included; and I believe no gentleman would repine to give ten
shillings for the carcass of a good fat child, which, as I have
said, will make four dishes of excellent nutritive meat, when he
hath only some particular friend, or his own family to dine with
him. Thus the squire will learn to be a good landlord, and grow
popular among his tenants, the mother will have eight shillings
A Modest Proposal |
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 The Exiles by Honore de Balzac: companionship of these two men. It was like seeing a frail and
graceful shrub that has grown from the hollow trunk of some gnarled
willow, withered by age, blasted by lightning, standing decrepit; one
of those majestic trees that painters love; the trembling sapling
takes shelter there from storms. One was a god, the other was an
angel; one the poet that feels, the other the poet that expresses--a
prophet in sorrow, a levite in prayer.
They went out together without speaking.
"Did you mark how he called him to him?" cried the sergeant of the
watch when the footsteps of the couple were no longer audible on the
strand. "Are not they a demon and his familiar?"
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