| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Awakening & Selected Short Stories by Kate Chopin: it was to walk like one in a dream. About the great, solemn
pillars, one after the other, she reached her arms, and pressed her
cheek and her lips upon the senseless brick.
"Adieu, adieu!" whispered Ma'ame Pelagie.
There was no longer the moon to guide her steps across the
familiar pathway to the cabin. The brightest light in the sky was
Venus, that swung low in the east. The bats had ceased to beat
their wings about the ruin. Even the mocking-bird that had warbled
for hours in the old mulberry-tree had sung himself asleep. That
darkest hour before the day was mantling the earth. Ma'ame Pelagie
hurried through the wet, clinging grass, beating aside the heavy
Awakening & Selected Short Stories |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Complete Angler by Izaak Walton: Then care away, etc.
Our cloathing is good sheep-skins
Grey russet for our wives
Heigh trolollie lollie loe, etc.
'Tis warmth and not gay cloathing
That doth prolong our lives:
Then care away, etc.
The ploughman, tho' he labour hard,
Yet on the holy-day
Heigh trolollie lollie foe, etc.
No emperor so merrily
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Hamlet by William Shakespeare: Warlicke appointment gaue vs Chace. Finding our selues too
slow of Saile, we put on a compelled Valour. In the Grapple, I
boorded them: On the instant they got cleare of our Shippe, so
I alone became their Prisoner. They haue dealt with mee, like
Theeues of Mercy, but they knew what they did. I am to doe
a good turne for them. Let the King haue the Letters I haue
sent, and repaire thou to me with as much hast as thou wouldest
flye death. I haue words to speake in your eare, will make thee
dumbe, yet are they much too light for the bore of the Matter.
These good Fellowes will bring thee where I am. Rosincrance
and Guildensterne, hold their course for England. Of them
Hamlet |
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 Second Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: said the Jackal.
"Better! That flood was no more than comes every five years--
a handful of drowned strangers, some chickens, and a dead
bullock in muddy water with cross-currents. But the season
I think of, the river was low, smooth, and even, and, as the
Gavial had warned me, the dead English came down, touching each
other. I got my girth in that season--my girth and my depth.
>From Agra, by Etawah and the broad waters by Allahabad----"
"Oh, the eddy that set under the walls of the fort at
Allahabad!" said the Adjutant. "They came in there like
widgeon to the reeds, and round and round they swung--thus!"
The Second Jungle Book |
