| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Silas Marner by George Eliot: that of having the fresh clear water. One day as he was returning
from the well, he stumbled against the step of the stile, and his
brown pot, falling with force against the stones that overarched the
ditch below him, was broken in three pieces. Silas picked up the
pieces and carried them home with grief in his heart. The brown pot
could never be of use to him any more, but he stuck the bits
together and propped the ruin in its old place for a memorial.
This is the history of Silas Marner, until the fifteenth year after
he came to Raveloe. The livelong day he sat in his loom, his ear
filled with its monotony, his eyes bent close down on the slow
growth of sameness in the brownish web, his muscles moving with such
Silas Marner |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Adam Bede by George Eliot: washed as clean as the smooth white pibble, an' thy hair combed so
nice, and thy eyes a-sparklin'--what else is there as thy old
mother should like to look at half so well? An' thee sha't put on
thy Sunday cloose when thee lik'st for me--I'll ne'er plague thee
no moor about'n."
"Well, well; good-bye, mother," said Adam, kissing her and
hurrying away. He saw there was no other means of putting an end
to the dialogue. Lisbeth stood still on the spot, shading her
eyes and looking after him till he was quite out of sight. She
felt to the full all the meaning that had lain in Adam's words,
and, as she lost sight of him and turned back slowly into the
Adam Bede |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Dreams & Dust by Don Marquis: With her broken Christs have died.
O beautiful half-god city of visions and love!
O hideous half-brute city of hate!
O wholly human and baffled and passionate town!
The throes of thy burgeoning, stress of thy fight,
Thy bitter, blind struggle to gain for thy body a
soul,
I have known, I have felt, and been shaken
thereby!
Wakened and shaken and broken,
For I hear in thy thunders terrific that throb
|
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 Verses 1889-1896 by Rudyard Kipling: Ever they greet the hunted fleet -- lone keels off headlands drear --
When the sealing-schooners flit that way at hazard year by year.
Ever in Yokohama port men tell the tale anew
Of a hidden sea and a hidden fight,
When the ~Baltic~ ran from the ~Northern Light~
And the ~Stralsund~ fought the two.
THE DERELICT
Verses 1889-1896 |
