| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lucile by Owen Meredith: Studied manners, the brilliant and bold repartee,
Will too soon in that fatal comparison be
To your fancy more fair than the sweet timid sense
Which, in shrinking, betrays its own best eloquence.
O then, lady, then, you will feel in your heart
The poisonous pain of a fierce jealous dart!
While you see her, yourself you no longer will see,--
You will hear her, and hear not yourself,--you will be
Unhappy; unhappy, because you will deem
Your own power less great than her power will seem.
And I shall not be by your side, day by day,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Pool in the Desert by Sara Jeanette Duncan: events.'
'Are there?' he said. 'I didn't notice. Goodbye, then.'
He went on to his office thinking of the roses, and that they were
in his garden, and that Madeline had seen them there. He thought
that if they were good roses--in fact, any kind of roses--they
should be taken care of, and he asked a Deputy Assistant Inspector-
General of Ordnance whether he knew of a gardener that was worth
anything.
'Most of them are mere coolies,' said Colonel Innes, 'and I've got
some roses in this little place I've taken that I want to look
after.'
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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 Mosses From An Old Manse by Nathaniel Hawthorne: withered guide led him along several obscure passages, and
finally undid a door, through which, as it was opened, there came
the sight and sound of rustling leaves, with the broken sunshine
glimmering among them. Giovanni stepped forth, and, forcing
himself through the entanglement of a shrub that wreathed its
tendrils over the hidden entrance, stood beneath his own window
in the open area of Dr. Rappaccini's garden.
How often is it the case that, when impossibilities have come to
pass and dreams have condensed their misty substance into
tangible realities, we find ourselves calm, and even coldly
self-possessed, amid circumstances which it would have been a
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 Statesman by Plato: world was ordained to be the lord of his own progress, in like manner the
parts were ordained to grow and generate and give nourishment, as far as
they could, of themselves, impelled by a similar movement. And so we have
arrived at the real end of this discourse; for although there might be much
to tell of the lower animals, and of the condition out of which they
changed and of the causes of the change, about men there is not much, and
that little is more to the purpose. Deprived of the care of God, who had
possessed and tended them, they were left helpless and defenceless, and
were torn in pieces by the beasts, who were naturally fierce and had now
grown wild. And in the first ages they were still without skill or
resource; the food which once grew spontaneously had failed, and as yet
Statesman |
