| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Mosses From An Old Manse by Nathaniel Hawthorne: lack of sympathy--that contrast between himself and his neighbors
which took away the restraint of example--was enough to make him
so. Or possibly he had caught just so much of ethereal radiance
as served to bewilder him, in an earthly sense, by its
intermixture with the common daylight.
One evening, when the artist had returned from a customary ramble
and had just thrown the lustre of his lamp on the delicate piece
of work so often interrupted, but still taken up again, as if his
fate were embodied in its mechanism, he was surprised by the
entrance of old Peter Hovenden. Owen never met this man without a
shrinking of the heart. Of all the world he was most terrible, by
Mosses From An Old Manse |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Mosses From An Old Manse by Nathaniel Hawthorne: certain circumstances judicially into the shade, may see much to
admire in the heroism of a little band who gave battle to twice
their number in the heart of the enemy's country. The open
bravery displayed by both parties was in accordance with
civilized ideas of valor; and chivalry itself might not blush to
record the deeds of one or two individuals. The battle, though so
fatal to those who fought, was not unfortunate in its
consequences to the country; for it broke the strength of a tribe
and conduced to the peace which subsisted during several ensuing
years. History and tradition are unusually minute in their
memorials of their affair; and the captain of a scouting party of
Mosses From An Old Manse |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy: that wondrous world of sap and leaves called the Hintock woods had
been with these two, Giles and Marty, a clear gaze. They had been
possessed of its finer mysteries as of commonplace knowledge; had
been able to read its hieroglyphs as ordinary writing; to them the
sights and sounds of night, winter, wind, storm, amid those dense
boughs, which had to Grace a touch of the uncanny, and even the
supernatural, were simple occurrences whose origin, continuance,
and laws they foreknew. They had planted together, and together
they had felled; together they had, with the run of the years,
mentally collected those remoter signs and symbols which, seen in
few, were of runic obscurity, but all together made an alphabet.
The Woodlanders |
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 Complete Poems of Longfellow by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Oh, I am miles away, if I but look!
Where art thou, Chilion?
CHILION.
Father, I am here.
BARTIMEUS.
Oh let me gaze upon thy face, dear child!
For I have only seen thee with my hands!
How beautiful thou art! I should have known thee;
Thou hast her eyes whom we shall see hereafter!
O God of Abraham! Elion! Adonai!
Who art thyself a Father, pardon me
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